Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[segedunum]

I wouldn't get too excited about the apperent 'improvement' in performance at the end of the season. Other team's had tailed off their development as had Mercedes, and it was then that they seemed to understand what on Earth their car was doing a little better. We saw false dawns like that with Honda as well. When you see a team taking some slightly radical development directions that are different to other teams and it doesn't improve performance you see some people trying to be radical for the sake of looking radical.

But of course, to question this stuff, and manufacturers in F1 in general, is to hate Mercedes......

[andrew]

Questioning is not to hate Mercedes. Constat Mindless bashing is.

[segedunum]

Perhaps if you had the forethought to actually see that Mercedes/Brawn had the DDD in 2009 but not the flexi wing in 2010 and Red Bull vice versa, you would see that perhaps Red Bull doesnt have this fabled "2 year head start".

I stated that Red Bull have a two year head start with the pull-rod suspension, and with the rear of their car in general since their single diffuser was the fastest thing out there when we last had one. God knows how what you've stated there tells us that Red Bull doesn't have a reasonable lead. What is required for 2011 they started doing two years ago. That's pretty much it.

The difference lies in suspension. And who did Mercedes recently employ....

The stuff you've talked about above is aerodynamics, where this team has fouled up rather a lot, so what they really need is......someone who can make suspensions. It gets better.

With the pull rod they have a head start, but it is actually not as advanced as the pushrod according to engineering mechanics.

These are the same people who told is at the beginning of 2010 that Red Bull would dispense with that suspension layout and the biggest area of development would be in strapping the biggest diffuser imaginable to the back of the car with as many holes as you could get away with? Uh, huh.

...its not exactly a paradigm shift when you have studied it for 2 years now is it?

Who has studied what? I'm afraid you don't look at a car for two years and find out it's secrets. Unless Mercedes's new engineer was employed by Red Bull at some point in the past two years and he can tell them what aerodynamic benefit the suspension brings then he isn't going to give them a lot. The pull-rod layout exists for aerodynamic benefits first. It's not the suspension itself.

[xpensive]

I think Honda as well as Daimler somehow misunderstood RB's role during his past glories, misinterpreting the title "Technical Director", both thinking he was some kind of designing messiah. Honda paid for it in one way, now Daimler their way.

RB has a godgiven and streetsmart talent of connecting to people in the right places, but an F1 designer he is not.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

X

So knowing what you know, you still think Mercedes are in for a pasting? Given you thing Brawn is master of the dark arts I mean

Our mutual friend insists Red Bulls lead will be maintained, where I have said with reasonable right that, teams will have learnt a thing or two on what makes the RB6 tick.

Thats "what they learnt" over a period of 2 years.

To say the engineers will have taken nothing away from what Red Bull have done over the last 18 months is stupendously short sighted as it is wrong.

And for the record, they gent they employed is straight into chassis departemtn according to autosport, this includes suspension.

[segedunum]

Taking a butcher's at someone's car is one thing, but working out what's going on is quite another. People tried all sorts - it was some kind of magical ride height system, the wings are flexing too much that took them over half a season to realise and Ron Dennis bizarrely told everyone that Red Bull's tank was too small. It doesn't look like they learnt much other than they had to try and cook the back-end of their cars, which many of those engineers steadfastly refused to do over many years because it was too difficult. There might be a few changes next year Red Bull will get caught out on but there's still a great deal they can stay in front with because they've done the work.

However, the immediate concern for Mercedes is not Red Bull but just trying to catch Ferrari and McLaren and staying ahead of Renault.

Daimler and Honda might well have misjudged Ross Brawn's input, but he was going to be Team Principal. What did they expect? I think he's a more than competent team head and he should be able to get the right people in. What puzzles me is that Mercedes didn't start scouring other teams like Renault and Force India for people last year. If someone experienced like Pat Fry was available I'd be in there. Mike Gasgoyne didn't muck about in pinching some Force India people. If something isn't working, and where you've been treading water, you've got to get some good people in prominent positions and you've got to spend the money if you're serious. They haven't and I have a feeling Daimler/Merc aren't quite as serious as they said they were a year ago when things looked peachy.

[mep]

It's amazing that you guys wrote 81 pages based on nothing else than pure speculation.
Let's just wait and see what happens. I wonder why you have so much time I can't even read all this stuff on the forum.

[marcush.]

I don´t get the idea what should be the reasoning behind hiring people from FI .They are and were always behind Merc this year.
James Key helped Sauber to get climb back towards a top ten position but Sauber never looked like a podium contender.
The people you might find useful are situated at RedBull technologies or maybe Ferrari and Mclaren.

[segedunum]

In case you hadn't noticed some speculation and arguing the case for it is the point of this forum. Without it there wouldn't be much fun.

What Force India don't have is resources really. Being behind Mercedes isn't what you're looking at. From their performances last year and the sight of a Force India blasting past a Merc at Spa as if it wasn't there with the same engine this year you've got to ask what they've got. Mike Gasgoyne isn't poaching them because they're his best mates.

You're looking at teams that have made good relative improvements versus other teams and how much improvement you've made, and it has to be said that Renault, FI and Williams is the level Mercedes are operating at. They certainly haven't attempted to poach Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari people. Things have remained static and have gone backwards, and that's happened a lot over many years. Either Merc are serious about moving forwards from fourth place or they're not.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

One thing is for sure, Mercedes are better off targeting Mclaren and Ferrari.

The Red Bull will probably have an advantage of sorts, personally I think ferrari will be up there too.

And When did we last have a headcount at Mercedes? Who says they arent hiring anyone?
From what I can tell they are hiring who they can.
You cant expect Newey et al to all be on the shopping list. That is fantasy F1, Mercedes are looking at this differently, and as MEP said...give them a chance will ya?

Manufacturers really are doomed from the start arent they? If they spend big its becuase they knw nothing about F1, and when they spend less they are labelled as trying to win on the cheap.

Haug and Brawn arent mugs and nor are the Mercedes board. A few people will have serious red faces if they they win a couple of races next year

[marcush.]

seg ,I see this completely different.
Mercedes started 4th best in this season and after a mid season dip they claimed back exactly that position firm and square.Renault made big attempts to overtake them with speed of development but realistically their performances were too much fluctuating .Kubica was not beating Nico in the WDC.So what was better -from Renaults side? They had to compensate for a weak engine,perhaps? The talking of RedBull of having inferior propulsion does not mean it is reality.I highly doubt you could the Renault engine package has significant drawbacks lokking at their speeds and championship positions.
Force India? They started well but the second half of the year they constantly moved backwards ..maybe a sign of the best people already left to Lotus and Sauber -but would this show so quickly? surprising.
williams? Was this any better than last year? I´m not that sure.Hulk scored ,yes ..but apart from that...
Normally you ´d say the last tenths are the most difficult .From that standpoint Ferrari and Mclaren did the best job ...if only RedBull were not the best extending the lead at times ....

[xpensive]

As I believe we have discussed at least a couple of times before, I think it all comes down to Daimler's xpectations,
why I belong to those who feel that NH had led them to believe that 2010 would more or less be a continuation of 2009.

At least not scraping with the likes of Renault and Williams for measly point-finishes, a far cry from the podium.

For 2011, perhaps the flexible board at Daimler, known for their patience with hardships, will be more compliant?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

X

most peple can tell the difference between a team that has invested 190 million into a car(BGP01) and one that had less than half of that investment and lead time AND staff(the W01).

So what you are saying is that Daimler execs Xpected the team to perform miracles while the investment was taken away?
Are you kidding?

These guys know more than you or me when it comes to future investment returns. It is their day job and as much as some despise Mercedes, they are still purveyors of some of the finest cars in the world. These guys run this company, to call them so far shortsighted means in al honesty that Mercedes should have hit the wal a long long time ago with these idiots in charge.

Looking at this in context, Daimler picked up a whole team inculding facilities for around 90 million. they finished 4th some disaster eh?

Interesting interview with Rosberg over on Autoport today.
Makes mention of changes happening "all the time" at Mercedes.....

[segedunum]

We've dealt with those issues. Marcush gave us a link to an article that described what was going on at Brackley in reasonable detail:

1. They had working models of the 2010 car going in May. I've no idea where this short lead time thing came from.

2. The investment in the 2009 car wasn't just thrown away, because with the continuity of the regulations the 2010 car should have been an evolution of a fairly dominant car. People like to make it sound as if Mercedes had to spend another full twelve months developing another car. This is crap.

3. We've established that their technical department and staff was intact and still is. Whoever was laid off it wasn't the BAR/Honda people who'd been there since the year dot.

4. We estalished that the team wasn't short of cash throughout the year. Certainly by the end of the year they had all the investment they could ever want, and certainly more than pretty much any team on the grid. Where people get the idea that investment was taken away one can only take a wild guess at.

5. Daimler's honchos know as much about future investment returns as Toyota, Honda or BMW did. Based on past experience saying that everything is OK because they know best isn't backed up by much evidence.

The myth of a downtrodden Brawn keeps getting painted but all the evidence that we've seen is completely at odds with the "Poor us" picture RB keeps painting. In fact, he's the only source for Brawn and Mercedes's alleged 'woes' and I don't see anyone around the paddock who buys it.

With some solid future backing, a second wind of investment with the takeover, a solid start with two championships, development continuity into 2010 and the added kick of Schumacher returning it's pretty obvious what Daimler would have thought. I don't even blame Norbert for selling that vision to Daimler because you would have expected them to still challenge for race wins in 2010 given the lead they had.

Now they're faced with a long trudge towards winning with absolutely no guarantee of success for possibly the best part of the next decade, and they don't want to spend the money on people who are going to be needed............ It's not hard to do the maths.

[tarzoon]

It's amazing that you guys wrote 81 pages based on nothing else than pure speculation.
Let's just wait and see what happens. I wonder why you have so much time I can't even read all this stuff on the forum.

:lol::lol::lol:

fanboy yin yang + not much more to do while waiting for the new cars.


Things went wrong, that's it. Ideas, predictions, calculations, preliminary tests, the whole bunch. Why? Everything that was said, possibly. MercGP had the manpower, clever people, a winning car.

RBR had the same and they won both championships.

so what went so different between the two teams?