Mercedes GP 2011

[Mr.S]

I do agree with Macush here too. Mercedes are not ready to own up responsibility & their faulty designs??? Why no firings as yet???

If the lack of TD was an issue then they should come up & accept it. I think they know Bob alone cant turn this team around & they dont want to put furthur attention & pressure on him.

The whole Red Bull example is seeming bogus. Look Jaguar was always a very average team. Honda atleast in pure resources was much bigger. They had a very successful guy in Brawn who should know what he is doing.Merc are a huge automobile giant with the best engine & KERS. The comparisons dont hold ground. With or without the DD BRAWN GP was a decent team maybe not great but pretty good.

Red Bull created a World Title worthy car from the 4th season & could have well have won. Merc should really do it in 3 season. Create a potential winning car. Bob has sufficient time. They can switch focus onto W03. They have all the backing from Stuggart & are recruting big to compete with the in-season developmental pace.

If they cant win races then there is VERY LITTLE HOPE. MAYBE A COMPLETE OVERHAUL is needed

I'd love to see you run a company. Didn't achieve our goals? FIRE EVERYONE! The way to achieve success is not to run around blaming people and firing them when you don't get to where you hoped you might. Instead, it's to breed a culture where people are comfortable working hard on the problems, and where you have people consistently there, with an understanding of what the problems are. All you do by firing people is 1) get rid of the people who are getting to grips with the problems in their mind 2) make everyone else nervous and less motivated 3) get a bunch of people in who you probably rejected when you were last interviewing for the position because they weren't as good!

It never ceases to amaze me how many idiots call for people to be fired for not getting it dead right.

You dont get it do you. In which company in the world do you twice screw up & still hold your spot. For any major loss someone has to accountable. Some demotions,firings whatever. Who is to be blamed for this mess?? 2 seasons of 200 Million each input & achieving nothing MAJOR???

This is Mercedes BENZ not Sauber. NO-one but the best deserve a job. If you are not Mercedes standard,if you cant design a good F1 car you dont deserve your job.

You need change. Stagnation will not get your forward. Mediocre quality will drag everyone down & their ambition. Aldo Costa got fired,so has everyone in Ferrari become very demotivated????This is a hard professional. You perform or perish. It is time to send a message that repeated failures WOULD not be tolerated by a safe job full of excuses.

There are plenty of fantastic people in Force India,Sauber & Renault. Mercedes is a factory team with the capacity to give big wages, benefits of working for Mercedes & a long term stability & benefits. It is not hard to poach people. There must be some decent engineers. SCREEN them, USE HELP from STUGGART. No1 was born into formula1. I am not saying 20% or 10% of teh workforce should be fired BUT now is the time for accountability

[beelsebob]

I'd love to see you run a company. Didn't achieve our goals? FIRE EVERYONE! The way to achieve success is not to run around blaming people and firing them when you don't get to where you hoped you might. Instead, it's to breed a culture where people are comfortable working hard on the problems, and where you have people consistently there, with an understanding of what the problems are. All you do by firing people is 1) get rid of the people who are getting to grips with the problems in their mind 2) make everyone else nervous and less motivated 3) get a bunch of people in who you probably rejected when you were last interviewing for the position because they weren't as good!

It never ceases to amaze me how many idiots call for people to be fired for not getting it dead right.

You dont get it do you. In which company in the world do you twice screw up & still hold your spot.

Quite a lot, actually.

For any major loss someone has to accountable.

Except that neither loss has been major, and you have no idea whether each of them was caused by the same person or not.

Some demotions,firings whatever. Who is to be blamed for this mess??

As I said – the way to achieve success is not to run around blaming people.

[marcush.]

I know only too well about these issues and do surely not underestimate the challenges.
In fact I know all too well how it feels when your company is not fullfilling the potential and Dick ,Fred and his dog is coming up with the solution or claim they could do it better.It turned out to have reached the end of its lifecycle at least for me and it certainly would have been a lot wiser to call it quits 5 years before even though I bagged two cahmpionships in the last two years and this led to many opportunities later on...
Brawn has done a few very questionable things since 2009 to sell the team to Mercedes and Schumacher and Rosberg.He surelay has to take the blame for the disappointing cars produced till then (not hiring a responsible guy -he is the one in charge)and he ´s the one comiong up with cheesy explanations and excuses.
You name it...i´d say enough is enough .Promote Bell to team principal and hire Willis ,Costa or Michael or why not Willis and Michael to get the job done.

[wunderkind]

Sorry marcush,

Honestly, I don't think Willis and Michael are capable of producing a championship winning car.

[dren]

So did the car hit the actual initial design goals? If it did, then the engineers are not to blame. Now that Bell is there, I hope to see a better car next year. One that handles well and reacts well to upgrades, much like the Ferrari of the past two years.

[Ferraripilot]

So did the car hit the actual initial design goals? If it did, then the engineers are not to blame. Now that Bell is there, I hope to see a better car next year. One that handles well and reacts well to upgrades, much like the Ferrari of the past two years.

No, I don't think they saw the wheelbase issue or fuel tank issue as an issue when they were designing the car. On paper, they believed the standard size diffuser would work better on a SWB car and as long as everything else is centrally located that it would work. On paper I suppose this makes enough sense, but the reality is they have a twitchy car which can be setup for qualifying or racing but never both.

I imagine Bell started on W03 months ago because the issues with W02 were immediately apparent. I have a feeling Haug was sandbagging the other day when he said MB won't be ready any time soon. Just my opinion, but I believe they are hiding something good. We shall see right? Can't hurt to be optimistic!

[marcush.]

Sorry marcush,

Honestly, I don't think Willis and Michael are capable of producing a championship winning car.

Michael and Willis had long time with Head so they are disciplined ironed out capable guys.Absolutely no question.

They both know what is working and what is not .Michael got to much in his hands at Williams ...Mercedes is in contrast well organaised at the track (save the guy fueling up Rosbergs car and the rear tyre guy) so I think no need to have the TD at the track. These two fit my bill very well.

[xpensive]

Just wildly speculating a bit on what we might xpect from the W03 design-wise, what if MGP brought Bob Bell aboard in order to complete the thinking around FEE and combine it with an even shorter wheelbase, not to lose the rear-tyre pre-heating effect?

[marcush.]

My guess is Bell left because of the FEE debate when Allison wanted to push it through or their weird planning of the tunnel upgrade timing ...
I don´t think W03 will be a RB7 look alike painted silver either.But if they really get to the root of the issues the w02 may stillcome out as a short car .
Obviously RedBulls philosophy of putting the kers Batteries between engine and gearbox bears potential and this is an area where Mercedes as a manufacturer can and will contribute.As I understand the Mclaren kers 2009 was a zytek job and the bitzs are used now by Ginetta in their lmp hybrid .The new 2011 kers already is a Mercedes job ,surely based on the knowledge gained in 2009 but sure the kers department in Mercedes dealing with grandprix kers is not a 5 guy show...it´s a serious department who can develop soemthing workable raceworthy and not a electronics kit redbull style..I expect something there.

[Mr.S]

Quite a lot, actually.

It's sad then. I dont want Mercedes to end up as a company promoting mediocrity & bearing it time & again.

Except that neither loss has been major, and you have no idea whether each of them was caused by the same person or not.

For a team who started off as DRIVERS & CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP,who expected to win from the outset,had a 7 time world champion(the most successful driver ever in the history of f1) along with Brawn & an automobile giant with a rich F1 legacy liek Mercedes it has been quite a big failure.

Getting lapped by Mclaren who Mercedes were partnering only recently is nothing to be proud of. Both the seasons are a failure. We have beaten Force India & Renault & moved up to No.4. Wow,what a great progress.If that is your attitude then we have nothing left to discuss.[/quote]

As I said – the way to achieve success is not to run around blaming people.

Neither have i said that. A blatantly obvious statement which has is highly irrelevant here. Holding people accountable is not blaming people around. People have twice severly under-performed have to be held accountable instead of shielding people with stupid excuses. The fans deserve a better car,the drivers do,the Mercedes brand does.

There needs to be strict action as to why this team was allowed to function like a headless rooster without even a proper TD. The HONDA guys are the very same who have wasted millions,they are the definition of MEDIOCRITY. IF MERCEDES want success they will have to dump a section of this mediocre team.

[marcush.]

Brawn making cheesy explanations why Rosberg was short on fuel at the end as well.. I just cannot stand this anymore...
Why would you run into fuel trouble when there was a safdety car period? You do not save fuel during this as you want to get rid of the weight ..so that had no influence on the fuel situation at the end...Are they dumping fuel to gain speed in the opening stints..what an idea..

[mep]

Beeing honest to ourself there is nothing to win for them when they start from P5.
Concidering everything runs normal they will finish 7 and 8 with a big gap to the front so when going short on fuel you can at least do some impressive first lap. They don't even lose something because in the end they finish behind the top guys. Well they can't fool me with such tricks anymore. When I saw Rosberg at the front I knew this will not last long.

I think we have something like a new Trulli train. It is the Mercedes road blocker. Getting in front at the start but then just holding everybody up. Reminds me of the guys on Autobahn who don`t want to move their creepy cars to the side where they belong to. Seems there is some truth in every prejudice or do they just want to pleasure their target group.

[beelsebob]

For a team who started off as DRIVERS & CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP,who expected to win from the outset,had a 7 time world champion(the most successful driver ever in the history of f1) along with Brawn & an automobile giant with a rich F1 legacy liek Mercedes it has been quite a big failure.

Getting lapped by Mclaren who Mercedes were partnering only recently is nothing to be proud of. Both the seasons are a failure. We have beaten Force India & Renault & moved up to No.4. Wow,what a great progress.If that is your attitude then we have nothing left to discuss.

Except that you're looking at this entirely incorrectly – you're asserting that they started as a team with an amazing car, and somehow threw it away. They didn't, they started with a mid-grid car, that happened to have one clever idea on it that got them a half-season lead on everyone else. Now that they don't have said clever idea as an advantage, they've maintained their position, or moved slightly forward – they've gone from 8th in '07, to 9th in the constructors in '08, to 1st in '09 with a single clever idea, to 4th consistently. That's good progress in my book.

[raymondu999]

That Trulli train is quite true this year. I remember that on the lap where Vettel passed Rosberg for the lead at Les Combes, by the time they reached Rivage, the gap was 1.1 seconds. Alonso, the gap was .845 by Rivage. Not very encouraging

[dren]

The use of DRS has to equate for some of that gap, how much it is hard to say.