Mercedes GP 2011

[Hemsy]

Technical director? Perhaps you should read the piece on Wiki about Pat Fry before you post?

It may be "chassis director" on Wiki but on every other website he's being referred to as Technical Director who is overlooking the chassis side of things. Read the following link from Wiki itself which says otherwise. Perhaps you should get your facts right before trying to prove me wrong!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Fry

[tok-tokkie]

This year there is specified weight distribution because of the unknown Pirelli tyres. Next year the weight distribution is free. Last year MB had tyre problems because they had the wrong weight distribution. This year they still have tyre probelms even though there has been a change from Bridgestone to Pirelli & the weight distribution is specified.

There seems to be a fundamental tyre & chassis interaction design problem at MB. I am interested to see what happens next year. Bell has a lot of shortcommings on the engineering side of the team to rectify. I would expect improvement but would not be surprised to see another repeat of a fundamental shortcomming somewhere in next years car. Without one then Bell has made a big difference.

[raymondu999]

Perhaps OT, but when discussing strange organizations, this is how Wiki describes Ferrari post-Aldo Costa;

"Chassis director" (Pat Fry) is one of 3 positions (the other two being: "production director" - currently filled by Corrado Lanzone; and "electronics director" - currently filled by Luca Marmorini). All 3 engineering positions operate on an equal footing within the team and all report directly to team boss Domenicali who has now taken over responsibility regarding on circuit strategy and other functions previously assigned to "technical director".

How a business administrator like Domenicali could possibly act decisively over those guys is beyond me?

Sorry, would this not be more suitable in the F150 thread, if anything?

[Hemsy]

This year there is specified weight distribution because of the unknown Pirelli tyres. Next year the weight distribution is free. Last year MB had tyre problems because they had the wrong weight distribution. This year they still have tyre probelms even though there has been a change from Bridgestone to Pirelli & the weight distribution is specified.

There seems to be a fundamental tyre & chassis interaction design problem at MB. I am interested to see what happens next year. Bell has a lot of shortcommings on the engineering side of the team to rectify. I would expect improvement but would not be surprised to see another repeat of a fundamental shortcomming somewhere in next years car. Without one then Bell has made a big difference.

I'm convinced that Bell can turn this team around. Imagine a classroom full of kids without a teacher. It would be chaos! Same applies to Merc. They were a technical team with no real technical leader. If Bell been working for the team a year ago he'd surely opposed the idea of a SWB. Plus you only have to look at Bell did at Renault after he became TD. Ever since 2003 Renault was on the up going from a midfield team to a podium contender to winning championships.

[timbo]

Perhaps OT, but when discussing strange organizations, this is how Wiki describes Ferrari post-Aldo Costa;

"Chassis director" (Pat Fry) is one of 3 positions (the other two being: "production director" - currently filled by Corrado Lanzone; and "electronics director" - currently filled by Luca Marmorini). All 3 engineering positions operate on an equal footing within the team and all report directly to team boss Domenicali who has now taken over responsibility regarding on circuit strategy and other functions previously assigned to "technical director".

How a business administrator like Domenicali could possibly act decisively over those guys is beyond me?

That is the same structure Ferrari had during the early 00's with Jean Todt.

[dren]

Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali has stated in an interview that Ferrari have started working flat-out on its 2012 challenger. I can only hope Merc are doing the same. What will be interesting to see is Merc's 2012 challenger against Ferrari's in terms of how developed it is out of the box. Both had changes to their technical personnel around the same time (April). Both Bob Bell and Pat Fry identified fundamental issues with their existing cars and must have started work on the 2012 cars in earnest.

With the teething issues of KERS, cooling, etc. out of the way for Merc, I expect their car to be quite polished out of the box in the winter. They will of course have a big upgrade before the first race like all of the other teams.

[Hemsy]

The importance of a fundamentally sound car cannot be understated. It's better to have a fundamentally sound but slow car than to have it the other way around. Last year's Ferrari was slow but fundamentally sound which is why they could improve the car over the year like they did. In Merc's case the the basics were so screwed up that than any improvements would have meant almost designing a new car which with the ban on in-season testing and the RRA just isn't feasible.

[marcush.]

teacher and classroom is not a good analogy.
I seriously doubt there are many guys in a formula 1 team in need to learn the job they were hired for.

The td is more like a conductor of an orchestra .Everyone knows how to play and has a certain quality of doing it ,otherwise no engament.Sure the orchestra can play everything you ask them to play will it be world class? I´m not much into music but it seems conductors are very important to an orchestras performance even though they carry not more than a stick and very often act almost invisibly raising eyebrows or pointing the stick in a certain ways.the main work is done in practise to hone the skills and harmony of the whole ensemble.

Yes a team with a weak TD will produce a car .But :certain elements contributing to the whole project will be overemphasized and not respecting ALL the constraints and implications .The compromise will be unbalanced as the different contributors are different personalities.It´s a human interaction problem more than anything else.If you don´t get Mercedes and Brawn to stay away from car concept decisions -no success-

[xpensive]

...
I'm convinced that Bell can turn this team around. Imagine a classroom full of kids without a teacher. It would be chaos! Same applies to Merc. They were a technical team with no real technical leader.
...

Oh please...

[wesley123]

I think I know where Hemsy is going at. It isnt that the technical directors do not know what they need to do or so, they just seem to lack discipline and motivation, and without these your team wont become world champion. It seems like when the team built another crap car they think 'oh well, this is unfixable, lets just do the palnned updates and make a new car next year', and it shouldnt be that way.

[munudeges]

Perhaps OT, but when discussing strange organizations, this is how Wiki describes Ferrari post-Aldo Costa;

"Chassis director" (Pat Fry) is one of 3 positions (the other two being: "production director" - currently filled by Corrado Lanzone; and "electronics director" - currently filled by Luca Marmorini). All 3 engineering positions operate on an equal footing within the team and all report directly to team boss Domenicali who has now taken over responsibility regarding on circuit strategy and other functions previously assigned to "technical director".

How a business administrator like Domenicali could possibly act decisively over those guys is beyond me?

I think that's why Adrian Newey described that set up when he asked who was Technical Director as 'strange', and no, it isn't the same structure they had under Jean Todt. What they had was a Technical Director in all but name in Rory Byrne and a track operations head in Ross Brawn who was called a Technical Director, hence the confusion as to who really did what. This is a bit of a mess that I can't see producing a car with any coherent thinking behind it.

Point is, I think Newey believes that you need a dyed-in-the-wool technical person who is going to have a clear idea of what form the car will ultimately take, and in the case of Ferrari I believe that person should have been Tombazis. Even having a Technical Director isn't enough. Bob Bell has a lot of experience but I just don't think he is that person. When he was at Renault it was Mike Gascoyne that kicked off the type of car they ultimately had for four seasons and had probably the best mechanical people around like Rob Marshall. When Bell was at McLaren people like Gordon Murray did the real thinking.

[timbo]

I think that's why Adrian Newey described that set up when he asked who was Technical Director as 'strange', and no, it isn't the same structure they had under Jean Todt. What they had was a Technical Director in all but name in Rory Byrne and a track operations head in Ross Brawn who was called a Technical Director, hence the confusion as to who really did what. This is a bit of a mess that I can't see producing a car with any coherent thinking behind it.

You are wrong. At least in 2000 Brawn was technical director and responded directly to Jean Todt while Byrne was head of what was called "Vehicle project" department that was responding to Brawn. Engine department was independent from Brawn and responded directly to Todt.
The only difference with current structure is that manufacturing is responding directly to team manager today, while in 2000 it was sort of tied between chassis and engines.

[raymondu999]

I have a slightly weird question that is somewhat out of place, but not really. With HP (who I believe is still a partner/sponsor of Lotus Renault GP - the Heidfeld/Petrov operation) acquiring Autonomy (who is a partner/sponsor of Mercedes GP) what will happen there? Does anyone know?

[xpensive]

Perhaps you shouldn't read much into titles timbo, to the best of my knowledge mun is correct, while the new Ferrari orgaization as described by Wiki, where three different technical departments reports to a non-technical Domenicali, sounds very strange to me.

[timbo]

[quote="xpensive"]Perhaps you shouldn't read much into titles timbo/quote]
I'm not reading into titles. The book on F1-2000 by Peter Wright has operation diagram and interviews with all key figures. If you think that source is not reliable enough you should think the same about Wiki.