Mercedes GP 2011

[marcush.]

JET always stating the loss of human power as the reason for Mercedes fall from grace..

It´s an awful lot of people they lost in recent time,thes are not nameless people:

Jacky Eackelaert
Gary Savage -
Jörg Zander
now they even do not have carbon fibre boxes anymore! any
coincidence for loss of expertise?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Mercedes never fell from grace Marcush.

They started as 4th best in 2010, and are 5th with 4th looking a certainty again.
Until they have 700 staff like Ferrari, or a dedicated team with Newey at the Helm like Red Bull, Or a £500million factory filled with talent and 30 years expertise then no Mercedes will not be able to compete.

2 things Mercedes are doing is hiring and upgrading facilities. Theyre doing all they can, and given the short time scale they arent doing badly.

[marcush.]

They really had a hell of a car with the legacy car inherited from Honda in 2009 .This car was so good it completely covered up any deficiencies of the team no question.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

They really had a hell of a car with the legacy car inherited from Honda in 2009 .This car was so good it completely covered up any deficiencies of the team no question.

That team, Marcush, had the benefit of 700 staff. By the time Mercedes got there it had 400, along with very good people moving on to other things.
Honda cash was no longer there, and Mercedes insisted it was no sugar daddy.
The team is working within its means.
Helmut Markko said Mercedes spends more than Red Bull in F1. That is utter PR crap as you cannot compare HPE to GP, they are seperate entities owned by Daimler.
Had Red Bull the nous, they would be spending even more to not only build their own engine, but also 2 other teams engines for the year instead of the paltry 6M they pay Renault now.

It really depends now how F1 developments will go as to where Mercedes end up. They are investing alot in cutting edge sim tech. Stuff you cannot buy off the shelf, but have to develop yourself, and Daimler have the know how for it.

Anther big problem for Mercedes is the homolgation problem, whereby certain areas of the car cannot be changed. Its the same for everyone, but if Mercedes got it wrong as in 2010 they could have made more meanginful changes.
As I see it, I still think there is alot of Promise. But if Ferrari cant win in 2011, how can anyone expect MErcedes to deliver in their second year with about half what Ferrari have?

[marcush.]

I think you are really spot on with this.

Companies like Daimler are developping theiir series cars now very much in a virtual environment and start to dump early prototype phases altogether starting to go build real cars only later in the development process..

I think this approach is really emulating the Newey approach in a virtual environment.The car is almost ready in his head before even the first cad solids are done.It´s all fitting in his personal DMU and he leaves the detaildesign to the boffins....well maybe with kers he went a different route ...just supplying a black box ...and it shows.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Marcush

Your right. Thing is there is only 1 Adrian Newey, he gets it wrong too, but not when your on a roll like this.

I see 2012 as a year Red Bull maybe challenged, but ultimately they will be victorious again.
Mercedes have to look and target McLaren and Ferrari. Matching them on pace in year 3 will be a huge achievement in my book. I doubt they will, but they have the potential for it.

Red Bull are too far away, and I fear they havent shown us everything yet.

[toshinden]

Someone post at my local forum, he stated that there is issue of Mercedes buying STR. Anyone know about this?

[luca]

GREAT interview with Ross Brawn by Peter Windsor: http://www.theracedriver.com/2011/07/in ... -the-same/

[Adamski]

GREAT interview with Ross Brawn by Peter Windsor: http://www.theracedriver.com/2011/07/in ... -the-same/

Thank you luca! It's a very interesting interview. It was nice to see, how Ross explains the difference between the two drivers.

[marcush.]

Well ..nothing unexpected really .
I think the interview reveals some of Schumachers real strengths as a contributor in a team.
He is drawing on a lot of experience without demanding specific things BUT challenging the tech guys who need to come up with proper expalanations and solutions.He is putting a lot of effort into it ..

Brawn has no technical role in the team anymore ...is this him throwing the hands up in the air and state he is not guilty?? Well he admits there was a void in Brawn -MGP without technical director...

What was Jörg zanders position in Hondaand at the start with Brawn?

AND:Owens first complete car design is the W02 so who was responsible for BGP01 and W01?
maybe Windsor could have digged deeper ito this methinks.

Also the mantra like statement they have understood the tyres only now and will benefit from the new knowledge only next year... heard that too often now.

why is Windsor not digging more into those aspects...he seems much too nice just stopping short of getting to the root of the issues..lost chance really.

[Morteza]

The guy next to Schumacher is John Owen if I'm not mistaken. Does anyone know his background?

[marcush.]

btw
in german mag sport auto they reported in 2007 when Owen came from BMW as an aerodynamicist together with Jörg Zander that Honda had lost all the competent seasoned people in recent years and only a "Kindergarten" of tech people was left there...So add to this the loss of Zander,Eackeleart etc etc ....in 2007 they even tested in paralell to SA and had FULL insight into their data to dig themselves out of the misery..as they did not understand the car..

[dren]

The lack of a technical director is indeed showing now. Brawn sounds almost embarrassed when admitting in interviews they screwed the pooch with the SWB.

On the bright side, Bob Bell is there to fill that gap. Brawn seems to think most of the systems they can drag over to 2012. I think the teething issues with the W02 are due to more than just the KERS and cooling. I expect the car to be much more sorted in testing next year.

[donskar]

I don´t think it´s an equipment issue .
Brawn stated already there is more to come from the borrowed exhaust solution...
So they actually have verified that Cannon beats midship exhaust fair aand square.
They frankly admit going down the wrong road on several accounts...As the team sroping the tools for their 2010 contender development this is really a sign of not having the right decision process in place.. time is not the factor .
I think some people there come up with unique ideas and there is just nobody in there to contest those proposals ...as X said ..a manager is rarely in a position to call bullshit what it is so my guess is they were not really honest with themselves when asking :is our concept a world beater or do we have to think harder and look more into why REDBull is so much better?
They adopted a high nose-clearly not needed to win races
They adopted pullrod rear suspension -not needed to win races

I´d think they realy seem unable to separate nice to have features from performance differntiators-see their airbox design last year-all for the bin ...lots of research and time was bound into that develoipment only to drop it for 2011..

The car does not have a much engineered looks to it .Yeah some guy had that double radiator idea ,compromising the rest of the car.. not very impressive..

Cant argue with your conclusions marcush, but where is Ross Brawn? Did he suffer a brain injury since leaving Ferrari? It's his job (IMHO) to sign off on the general technical direction, and to be the one

to contest those proposals

. Reading over this thread, it is hard NOT to see M-B as leaderless and even amateurish. How long will M-B allow their reputation as a great engineering firm be tarnished?

[xpensive]

@donskar

I believe the W02 is rather valid proof of what somebody said all along, Ross Brawn was always "Tecnical Director" in name only.