Mercedes GP 2011

[marcush.]

Fitness and age is not an issue ...look at him after the races he certainly does not look exhausted .
Look at his first lap performances and ability to really race everyone in this field .
He certainly does not look out of his depth .
The distance in Qualy or laptime to Rosberg is not any more dramatic then it is between Button and Hamilton ,Alonso and Massa or Vettel and Webber .intriguingly the voices one of those should concede defeat and retire are not very loud.
I think Schumacher is an asset to Mercedes and as soon as the car is capable of running at the front he will deliver ..a short message was sent in Canada and surely without 2011DRS he would have kept 3rd .

[xpensive]

...
Mercedes kept Brawn not realising they had made the man rich but forcing him to stay is not a guarantee to stay on top.They really did not understand Brawns importance to the success of the team once it is sold to Mercedes.
...

I beg to differ marcush, my point is that both Honda and Daimler fundamentally misunderstood Ross Brawn's role at Ferrari,
the former believing he was Technical director in the true sense of the word, while the latter saw him as team principal material.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

If we go 100 steps backward again.

1.Mercedes-Benz want to be in F1.
2.They cannot continue to supply and sponsor an on road rival in McLaren.
3.Setting up a new F1 team from scratch is too prohibitive cost wise.
4.At the time, Mercedes could pick up a winning Grand Prix team for 80 million euros(peanuts). Compare that to the 50 million Virgin spent, or the billions Honda and Toyota spent....
5.However "stupid" Haug or Mercedes were in due diligence, they picked up a team capable of finish 4th in the WCC.(how is this incompetent, or as a prevalent poster put it, b$llsh$t?)
6.The team is being reinvested and is actively looking to grow to the size of the teams above them.

Apprently they are only holding fourth due to their superpowered Mercedes engines that are so much better than those Mclaren and Force India recieve. May as well badge it AMG, as it is so much more powerful than the standard V8 unit!

And Haug? He is terrible isnt he? The only use for him is at the teams canteen to demolish the(very tasty) Lasagne. I mean, what else has he done in these last 25 years to be Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss?

(sarcasm off)

In all honesty I have said it before, and yea, I'll say it again. Mercedes GP are having teething troubles, and this is disappointing. More couldve been done earlier, but given the context of the RRA perhaps Brawn expected too much from that.
As soon as Mercedes realised it was being cut adrift from the top, it employed Bob Bell, and went on a recruitment drive.
This is clear management at work, and is also on top of the investment of new tech at the Brackley factory.

Now if someone were to say the technical side of the teams management was faulty I would concur. We know there was NO technical director before Bell.
But again this has been seen to.

What do we expect from a guy joining in April? Change the car and make up 1.3 seconds in 3/4 months?
The W01 and W02 are cars born out of a team of 450 people without a technical director.

Lets see where Mercedes can go with 500+ staff with Bell at the helm before people point fingers unfairly at people who arent to blame for a lack of performance from the car.
We also know Mercedes will be here for another 3 years after 2011. Stuttgart showing commitment to the team in spite of mediocre performances.

[marcush.]

http://profeng.com/cover-story/formula- ... ess/page:1

Ross Brawn ..as the man sees himself.

clearly the gap to the front is a engineering gap to him..not process or philosophy or team structure.

Maybe he is the reason why it´s not working...He has a ways to do it but it´s not working .

[xpensive]

Conveniently forgetting that it was MrM who gave him his first break in F1 as a milling machine operator in 1977, I wonder why?

In all other respects quite a Cinderella story, isn't it?

[marcush.]

I´d think Brawn has had the luck of having people around him who had visions and talent enough to produce competitive machinery at Benetton and Ferrari.Intriguingly he followed up Barnard in Benetton and also in Ferrari so I´m pretty sure in both cases all the foundations for success were already laid :perfect facility on quasi NASA level and aviation proceedures installed so it was a workable environment .
As I understand Barnard was a bit delicate handling with people and maybe that´s were Brawn could bring in his talent and reshuffle the troops a bit here and there.
He had something as a Newey in Byrne cranking out not only new and orginal but also working ideas ..and this is where MGP seems to fail.The Team does not know behind which ideas to put their weight and ends up with blade type rollover structures ,short wheelbase ,double rads ,droop nose,midship exhausts etc etc waisting useful development time and recources on their search for the next important development.
The basic thinking is correct.Trying to learn from the past will not bring success as your recources will be bound in keeping up with the leaders.But to me first the guy with the brilliant ideas for a car is simply not there or he´s not allowed to do it and Brawn or his commitee unable to detect crap ideas or targets as a lack of basic understanding ,setting wrong goals or aquireing wrong information that leads to wrong decisions.

[MIKEY_!]

Fitness and age is not an issue ...look at him after the races he certainly does not look exhausted .
Look at his first lap performances and ability to really race everyone in this field .
He certainly does not look out of his depth .
The distance in Qualy or laptime to Rosberg is not any more dramatic then it is between Button and Hamilton ,Alonso and Massa or Vettel and Webber .intriguingly the voices one of those should concede defeat and retire are not very loud.
I think Schumacher is an asset to Mercedes and as soon as the car is capable of running at the front he will deliver ..a short message was sent in Canada and surely without 2011DRS he would have kept 3rd .

So why do we see older drivers tend to struggle compared to what they used to do. We know that at their primes Schuy is better than Rosberg. The reason Rosberg is (slightly) quicker now is that Schuy is past his prime. I still have no doubt he can deliver and his experience is useful in development as well (more so than Rosberg)

[wunderkind]

[quote="MIKEY]
So why do we see older drivers tend to struggle compared to what they used to do. We know that at their primes Schuy is better than Rosberg. The reason Rosberg is (slightly) quicker now is that Schuy is past his prime. I still have no doubt he can deliver and his experience is useful in development as well (more so than Rosberg)[/quote]

I think age has slowed Schumacher somewhat. I think Schumacher will be just as fast as Rosberg if we were back to the old regime of unlimited testing and with the team built around him.

Also, Schumacher is not coping with the Pirellis. He can't change his driving style to cope with the tyres like a younger driver can. Schumacher needs a very very strong front-end with razor sharp turn-in that borders on oversteer. He can take care of the back-end of the car. Such a car is very nervous to drive as shown by Schumacher's successive teammates' inability to cope with a car that is built for Schumacher.

[MIKEY_!]

Old dog, new tricks etc... well said.

[marcush.]

old dogs .
We just don´t know if Schumacher has lost his edge.Compared to those who also drove in his first career ,I don´t think he has lost anything .
Barrichello ,Heidfeld,Massa,Webber do not look superior in ability or speed more than they did back then with the possible exception of Alonso ,but we have to remember that Schu had his issues to beat Alonso back then already.
So IF he has lost edge ,then it was already lost at the end of his first career in Formula 1.
Rosberg to me is a one lap wonder.He is really excelling at extracting that special lap from the car for whatever reasons.
But now with reduced emphasis on grid position with the new rules this advantage is almost useless and in fact more often than not within 3or 4 corners of the race Schumacher is either at the tail of rosberg or in front.

Mercedes needs a quicker car -a 1% flat improvement in average lap time and we will see them challenging for podiums and wins.

[dren]

old dogs .
We just don´t know if Schumacher has lost his edge.Compared to those who also drove in his first career ,I don´t think he has lost anything .
Barrichello ,Heidfeld,Massa,Webber do not look superior in ability or speed more than they did back then with the possible exception of Alonso ,but we have to remember that Schu had his issues to beat Alonso back then already.
So IF he has lost edge ,then it was already lost at the end of his first career in Formula 1.
Rosberg to me is a one lap wonder.He is really excelling at extracting that special lap from the car for whatever reasons.
But now with reduced emphasis on grid position with the new rules this advantage is almost useless and in fact more often than not within 3or 4 corners of the race Schumacher is either at the tail of rosberg or in front.

Mercedes needs a quicker car -a 1% flat improvement in average lap time and we will see them challenging for podiums and wins.

I agree Rosberg is a one lap wonder. He also is a very consistent driver too. Schumacher has the upper hand in the race, but seems to be lacking that little bit extra in qualifying.

[xpensive]

Agreed marcush. If anything, I believe that what we see is a truly Bullsh*t car being flattered by its drivers.

[dren]

He had something as a Newey in Byrne cranking out not only new and orginal but also working ideas ..and this is where MGP seems to fail.The Team does not know behind which ideas to put their weight and ends up with blade type rollover structures ,short wheelbase ,double rads ,droop nose,midship exhausts etc etc waisting useful development time and recources on their search for the next important development.
The basic thinking is correct.Trying to learn from the past will not bring success as your recources will be bound in keeping up with the leaders.But to me first the guy with the brilliant ideas for a car is simply not there or he´s not allowed to do it and Brawn or his commitee unable to detect crap ideas or targets as a lack of basic understanding ,setting wrong goals or aquireing wrong information that leads to wrong decisions.

I think you hit it right on the head Marcush. The BGP001 was such a great machine because of not only the money invested in it but the time the team had to develop the car. They were able to test out just about all of their design ideas and figure out which were the best. They no longer have that luxury. That is part of the reason why we see the team going in a certain design direction and then later finding out it wasn't the best direction. They certainly can engineer around problems, but there needs to be someone at the head who can point them in the right design direction. I am hoping Bell is that guy.

[dren]

Agreed marcush. If anything, I believe that what we see is a truly Bullsh*t car being flattered by its drivers.

The funny thing is both drivers seemed to think the car was pretty good initially, especially when compared to the W01. It looks like it drives better, but just isn't as competitive relative to the competition this year.

[mep]

Schumacher might have lost something but he is still good enough to compete with the best he is just not superior anymore. It is annoying to see Rosberg being constantly faster than him but sometimes it’s just the blink of an eye. Schumacher might have lost something like 1-2 tents compared to his own pace when he was a young guy like Rosberg is now. With that he would be superior to Rosberg. Now he is at one level during the races and slightly behind in qualy. Even without that he is still the best driver Mercedes can get and better than some of the drivers in top teams. Actually there are very few drivers like Schumacher. People just have to realise this. His success didn’t came by accident or luck. It was the result of his talent and hard work. Comments like cars or tires build around him is nothing else than BS. However at end of 2006 season it seemed like he Ferrari team was not fully behind him anymore. It became obvious during Turkey race where the team missed the chance to switch positions with Massa and put some unnecessary risked to the championship. Also the engine failure in Japan and the strange behaviour of the car in the next race in Brazil is suspicious especially considering the proven sabotage acts in the team during the following season.

It is some kind of mystery to me why people always tent to criticise Schumacher all the time. This man is an absolute top level driver for 20 years and has won 7 Championships and got second many times. Nobody else even comes close to this.
Well Germans seem to have some kind of problem with their heroes and foreigners don’t support Germans very much. I think even the Italians never really accepted Schumacher even so he delivered so many titles to them. Just look how they kicked out Kimi who won a title for them just to get the Spanish Alonso. I am sure Schumacher would have much more support if he is not German but let’s say some Latino. The 2 or 3 titels of certain Latinos seem to be worth more than the 7 titles of Schumacher. A ridiculous situation.