Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[marcush.]

but Sauber was racing the "Brawn of 2010"...designed by a works outfit produced in their premises and adapted to a competitive second source engine...
It´s not like Ross did something ordinary in 2009...yes DDD....
Even Newey admits that this was not deciding anything in 2010.And in 2009 Brawn was just one of 3 teams starting the season with that device.

[xpensive]

As I can recall;
- Sauber did not even xist on new year's eve 2009, hats off to him for still cobbling up budget, team and engine.
- Renault were already preparing their xit by cutting costs, with "Genital" partnership and a Russkie pay-driver.
- Williams is now a kit-car team, depending on a retiree, who's biggest talent is not to break the precious car.

I'm certain the Stuttgart board were over the moon by beating such strong opposition.

[Blackout]

RF1 updated its windtunnel, recruited more personal and delivered the most aggressive aero development program in its short history. So that does'nt look like a team cutting its costs... RF1 did that in 2007...
But RF1's 2010 season was a transition season, for many reasons...
I think MGP should watch out for LRGP too. Both had problems in 2010 and both stopped their development early...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Blackout is a Renault version of me!

[Byronrhys]

BMW shifted their development early for 2009 also and look what they produced, an absolute rubbish car for a works team, even the Renault was better than them. The biggest asset to both MGP and RF1 were their drivers in 2010.

[marcush.]

my point.
the hard truth is it seemed to swing around when willy Rampf left ...the car picked up speed and reliability ..Of course that was not only him but it very much shows that you may already have the right people but need to let them do their work or restrain them to get the results..
the same bunch of people produced outright crap ,championship material and soso material in three seasons .Thats true for Honda but as well for each of the top teams to a degree ,save RedBull of course who had a soso car, a very good one and a dominant one.

[xpensive]

Fact remains marcush, fourth in the 2010 WCC was being second last of the serious teams competing, when beating Williams,
STR, Sauber and FI could hardly have been satisfactory for Daimler?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Your right X,

It wasnt satisfactory to Daimler. But what we can say is that there was a definite improvement in the squad towards the end.
Is 4th a disaster? No we know that much.
Is it a dissapointment? Yes, expectations were high.
Are Mercedes GP personell clueless as the resident clown has us believe? No, of course not.

Some say the attributes of the BGP001 was just down to the diffuser, then others say the outwash front wing. Sounds reminiscent of Red Bull this year.
Flexi wing and blown diffuser, thats the only reason they won right?(Of course it isnt)

Whats to say they find a loop hole in 2011? Said resident clown will no doubt label Mercedes GP cheats.
I mean its Honda in disguise and they never won a damn thing, so that must ring true for Mercedes too right?(of course, my sarcasm gets the better of me once again)

In outright resource we know Ferrari Red Bull and probably Mclaren(maybe not as much as the other 2) have Mercedes GP licked. But Mercedes arent sitting idly by, unless the appointments of key personell is sitting idly by.
They have also had CFD investments and a wind tunnel that is pretty much state of the art(2007).
Schumachers nous on car development, Brawns ability to extrapulate the most from the rules and Haugs inside view of F1(renowned wheeler dealer).

Along with some(miniscule) help from the boys at Benz(tyre related and computer I remember reading) It doesnt exactly paint a picture of a team full of monkeys peeling banana's for a day job.

I will sit back and laugh my preverbials off at 4th being a total abject disaster, knowing that the worlds most succesful f1 team, who have entered every competition since the inception of F1, finished 4th in their 59th season.
How embarressed must those Daimler boys be at finishing 4th in their first year back since 55.

[marcush.]

fact remains renault was close to them a t the start and at the end of this season speedwise and a lot of people rave about the developments Renault did produce and bash
Merc for not beeing able to improve.
to me these two show quite well we have a general misconception of the reality dished out by media and pr blabla...Renault and Mercedes had over the season identical development speed at least in terms of competitiveness.Renault paid the price for not hiring Heidfeld in losing the battle to Mercedes as nick would have equalled Michael in points .but as we saw they were short on funds so maybe they had no choice to wait for the Bernie money to arrive for results bagged by a delivering second driver.

Compared to the first year of Mercedes in F1 as engine supplier ,be it with Sauber(24points in two seasons) or Mercedes (1995)..I think it went ok... (30points with Mclaren!)...not to mention the following year they did not win either but had some podiums...and bagged 4th position in the constructors..

But exp you are right ..they were a bit naive to think they could crank down the heat a bit and let do Michael some magic...that did not work out ....not at all.

[xpensive]

While again, I'm fairly sure that something rather dramatic will happen if things don't improve pretty rapidly in 2011,
aware of the implications if the grid's only manufacturer, "national team" at that, keeps losing out to their customer?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Mercedes have said 3 years. It's been an inauspicious start, but it's been better than the start they had with either sauber or mclaren as Marcush pointed out.
Would you say mercedes venture with mclaren was a disaster?

Kinda puts things in perspective

[xpensive]

It took the couple a few years to get up to speed yes, but remember, that was with Mario Ilien and Adrian Newey, duly pinched from Williams and almost lost to Jaguar. Engine developments doesn't count anymore, but aerodynamics, hell yeah.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So by that measure red bull have wrapped up the championships until 2012?

[xpensive]

So by that measure red bull have wrapped up the championships until 2012?

Naah JET, by next year most of the other teams have cought on to RBR's innovative way of cheating, we might see flexibility to mindboggling levels, when the copy more often than not prove superior to the original. Right JET?

[segedunum]

RF1 updated its windtunnel, recruited more personal and delivered the most aggressive aero development program in its short history. So that does'nt look like a team cutting its costs...

Renault have a brilliant CFD and testing infrastructure as well as a stable group of personnel that allowed them to bring front wings and other parts to every race. It's not that other teams couldn't do that, but they didn't. Why? Because Renault understood what their parts were going to do better than any other team apart from Red Bull. Having to bring in Petrov as Williams are having to bring in Maldonado is a mark of how things were operating, nevertheless.

I see that '4th isn't a disaster' crap is rearing it's head again. We've dealt with that before as well. Compared to where the team was last year, and in previous years, and with the development stability we now know they had they lost something between two and four seconds per lap on where they were relative to other teams when comparing 2009 to 2010. They even fell further back relative to the teams behind them like Williams and Torro Rosso.

We also need to get rid of this 'three years' nonsense Mercedes are supposedly giving themselves as if they're somehow a new team. That team has been in existence for over ten years and has first rate facilities and a stable group of engineers who've been together for most of that time. Mercedes don't need three years to build anything.

I hate to point out the bleeding obvious again, but that's why they bought it.