Mercedes GP W02

[xpensive]

There is clearly something funny on the engineering side, with the lack of attention to detail and Norbert's constant babbling about upgrades that never happens. Could it be that the mother compay's influence is bigger that anticipated, that this is not a homogenous team, Daimler and Ross Brawn on either side with Norbert in between perhaps?

Remember when Daimler built a sportscar for poor Peter Sauber, what a mess?! Where the h*ll is JET by the way?

[Mandrake]

He's probably on his way back from Monaco where he went yesterday afternoon straight after the race to slap the MGP officials in the face and expressing his endless feeling of shame and disappointment

[roadwarrior]

When are we going to start seeing the influence if any from Bob Bell? McLaren, very impressively, virtually redesigned the whole rear end of their car once the realised their octopus exhaust wasn't working. Why don't Merc just admit they went wrong and make some drastic changes and copy some of the other teams' ideas. Anything has got to be better than what they are doing now.

Their car looks terribly finishes compare to the other teams. It's like they are still running a test mule or something. Lol, the W02 has more panel lines and hatches than a WWII bomber.

[NewtonMeter]

He's probably on his way back from Monaco where he went yesterday afternoon straight after the race to slap the MGP officials in the face and expressing his endless feeling of shame and disappointment

I'd join him if I could...

[Ferraripilot]

There is clearly something funny on the engineering side, with the lack of attention to detail and Norbert's constant babbling about upgrades that never happens. Could it be that the mother compay's influence is bigger that anticipated, that this is not a homogenous team, Daimler and Ross Brawn on either side with Norbert in between perhaps?

Remember when Daimler built a sportscar for poor Peter Sauber, what a mess?! Where the h*ll is JET by the way?

They have a clear paradigm regarding W02 which I have yet to understand. They say that the idea of W02 was to reinvent the wheel and not really copy what anyone else is doing, but rather have their own 'thing' figured out which would lead to others of course copying them. Mclaren did the same thing only their idea is working. Ferrari did their best to copy RB and it's working every once in a while, but that is not how championships are won.

W02 has the right idea, but thus far it has been poorly executed. During practice they may have made a mistake in waiting so long for the actual car to be tested only coming into play the last couple days of testing. Yes, they gained a second but they were still a second behind and now they are even more than a second behind. They stated in practice that the upgrades would bring a second and they did which was something we were not used to with W01 as its upgrades did nothing. I can only hope that a further evolution of W02 is in store to make this thing competitive as they would like. Michael is going to be hard-pressed seeing a podium with this car.

In regards to Michael, it seems he remains steadfast in his commitment to Ross and Norbert and states the necessary ingredients for further WCC are there but he certainly must be seeing something we are not. It seems like he/Brawn/Haug/Nico are leading a horse to water with regards to MB Brackley engineering and development but they are just not drinking.

[bot6]

Again, I think the missing ingredient is money. There is no way of beating teams that have three times your budget apart from the occasional DDD miracle. The 30M Euros they're getting from Petronas is a cheap deal considering how much exposure they are getting and I think they need new sponsors to get some proper cash for development and for investment in the infrastructures.

As far as Bob Bell goes, a man does not a team make. Not Bell, not even Newey, as gifted as he is.

And Schumi is paid a ridiculously small amount of money for an elite driver (I think around 1.4M a year) so "all this money" is not so much. I'm sure Heidfeld gets more from Renault. So he's not the one pumping up the resources.

For the lack of detail thing, it would actually make sense that the car IS a test mule. A very modular platform with easily interchangeable bodywork pieces in order to find out what works and what doesn't with a long term view on finding the right "concept". But right now they are trying to sort out the inside before they play with the outside, as they have cooling issues with the double decker rads they did not expect. That would also make sense. But that's all speculation.

What we know is they have a lot less money and a lot less people than the Big Three and they're still teasing them every once in a while, so I don't think there is something terribly wrong with the team.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ok where do I start?


Saw this coming from a mile away. And it will happen again at Hungary.
The W02 eats its rear tyres badly, regardless of any small advantage they get from the shorter wheelbase around the principality.

It was fast enough in qualifying trim, but that is not indicative of the tyre degrdation the car inevitably has to go through during the race. Jersey Tom will probably have a list of solutions Mercedes will be considering.

Is there a crisis?
No.

I posted on Wednesday that Mercedes would have a shocker. And they did.

Come Monza, Suzuka and maybe Spa we will see the car looking much more competitive we will be commending them on a job well done.
It's a track issue.

As for Mercedes updates, I have heard nothing. I expect them to drop the excessive cooling vents and the Mclaren style shadowed airbox as their cooling requirements will be less at a more open track.

Talk of incompetance is slowly creeping back onto this thread, I dont think we should be jumping the gun when all the indicators telegraphed us the fact that Mercedes GP would struggle with the W02 at Monaco....excessive rear tyre wear AND added cooling requirements.

[marcush.]

JET I hear you but I´m surprised at the voices of the team members Rosberg was sure to be on the podium till race start and is very much completely surprised as it looks..So that does not match up with your view that it was obvious they got a a big hit between their eyes.
If they had the view they could not get on top of their issues they would have surely be more cautious with their predictions ,Scumacher was a bit philosophical but did not rule out a top result either....No i think Mercedes was really not expecting what happened in the first stint.
What is really surprising with this :you can´t really change that much from Qualy to the race apart from maps and what is available on the steering wheel ,right ? so was it something as simple as a high rear tyre pressure as a reaction to Rosbergs off in FP3 to avoid trouble in the opening lap that killed them?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The W02 will simply not be any good around a track that requires excellent mechanical grip.

The probem arises from the wear they experience. And it shows that the cars can both be very quick in qualifying, but the moment you start putting the car on the tyres for any amount of time, it starts to go backwards. I could see that happening, as I'am sure could others.

Mercedes saying they could achieve a podium was speculative PR. Sure they could, it's Monaco after all. High rates of attrition around the place has led to results unlikely in most peoples minds.

I remain convinced the team is heading in the right direction. Mercedes are actually investing into this team beyond the actual budgetry allowances. The simulator is one area, and its due to be complete mid season.
Bell being introduced will also help Mercedes, a fresh face of his claibre coming in will be an asset to any team.

The problem Mercedes have is thing dont change on a dime in F1. The noises I have been hearing this year make me far more comfortable than the ones we heard last year. This is a now officially a 5 year project, so Mercedes will persevere.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

As an added note, I will make another prediction.

At Monaco, we saw a harder wearing Pirelli tyre wear quicker/provide more issues on the Mercedes.
At Canada, I believe Pirelli are taking the same compound tyre to an abbrasive track surface.

Here I think we will see Mercedes be more competitive. as the tyre drop off will be more equal, I think Mercedes achilles heel will be less visible.
In addition, they have a very long straight for the car to stretch its long legs.

As ever we will see.

[marcush.]

qualy speed is one thing ,but both drivers were convinced to be stronger on race pace .Brawn was happy about their long run performance in FP so no I´m genuinly of the impression that either they got something completely wrong for the first stint 8on both cars!so a team decision!)or it was something to do with the exhaust blowing not made available from Mercedes...explaining their loss of rear grip.

i don´t follow your logic with Montreal.When I got a problem in my system a added severity factor -abrasive track surface -will exagerate my trouble not help it.So if I got a problem with rear tyre temps ,this will be highlighted by a track wich is harder on tyres and so the tyres will fall apart even earlier and the drop off will be even more marked...Pirelli speaking of the cliff...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The problem will be the tyre degredation percentage for all teams will be higher. Thus marginalising Mercedes achilles heel.
Monaco is not abbrasive, as you could probably tell by Vettel doing 40 odd laps on a pirrelli soft.

So yes Mercedes will suffer their tyre degredation, and probably worse than anyone. But Everyone else will also be feeling the heat of degrdation here if you get where Im coming from.

[Adamski]

The problem will be the tyre degredation percentage for all teams will be higher. Thus marginalising Mercedes achilles heel.
Monaco is not abbrasive, as you could probably tell by Vettel doing 40 odd laps on a pirrelli soft.

So yes Mercedes will suffer their tyre degredation, and probably worse than anyone. But Everyone else will also be feeling the heat of degrdation here if you get where Im coming from.

JET, I understand your expectations about Canada, but I fear, that if Mercedes eating their tires on a track, which has low degradation, then more bad things will be happening on a track, where tire degradation is critically high.
I expect Schumacher to struggle through the whole race compared to Rosberg, because of his driving style. (Just remember last year...)
I also think MGP will perform very well in qualification, as they can use DRS at those long straights, and hopefully it will helping them a little bit.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@Adamski

IMO the unique limiting factor at Monaco for Mercedes, will now become the common denominator for all teams(wear rate).

As a percentage the softs will last around 25 laps at Monaco or 33% of the race total. At Canada I expect that to fall below 25%. So as the wear ratio increases, Mercedes issues with the W02 will remain, but their competition will also suffer degredation.
More pit stops = better for the W02.

[marcush.]

@Adamski

IMO the unique limiting factor at Monaco for Mercedes, will now become the common denominator for all teams(wear rate).

As a percentage the softs will last around 25 laps at Monaco or 33% of the race total. At Canada I expect that to fall below 25%. So as the wear ratio increases, Mercedes issues with the W02 will remain, but their competition will also suffer degredation.
More pit stops = better for the W02.

twhat you call wear is in my view an overheating situation.It´s not like Schumacher was on the pace and had to give way and pit because his rears were used up.He was dead slow after lap one and could not make any impression from the word go after the start ..maybe apart from overtaking Hamilton in loews but that was not tyre related.
Rosberg could only stay in the queue and his pace was bad from the word go ..So there was really something wrong which was not related to tyre wear.(Or did they both use just one set of supersofts in the whole qualy? that would be at least an explanation for these supersofts not performing anymore.
I can imagine that again they have no handle on the tyre temps especially the temperaturte spread front rear maybe it´s just they cannot have low enough pressures at the start to prevent the hot pressures to increase too much for a proper inflated shape at the lower speeds in monaco? In Qualy no problem there ,you live wiith the fact that your rear grip is gone after 2 laps but what to do when you need to go for another 12 laps?