Mercedes GP 2011

[marcush.]

sure.
with the lower nose mandated the cof Gof the legs is going to come down ,the bum is as low as possible anyways so you got some degrre of freedom with the drivers Torso...But more upright pushes the cockpit sides up ,as those need to meet the helmet.Wich leads to a larger crossection as the shoulders are higher up ...can you make use of the space gained .i´m not sure..the Mclaren with the low front and low low drivers back is worth a look.
I think they will narrow the tub a bit revert to the low slung steering rack and reposition kers components.Elongating the car a bit at the rear .Unfortunatelly they seem to hav lost their expertise with cf-gearbox casings (Gary Savage not there anymore),so maybe having a very integrated solution in aluminium is a bit difficult.

[Mr.S]

The more I look at it,the more unprofessional Merc seems. Why did they develop their car at Barca last test???They barely got dry running & the first 2-3 races were like test sessions. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL & unacceptable.


I cant seem to find a single decent update apart from modying & reintroducing their previous Front wing in Barca which they had to abort because they did not have enough DF & a new exhaust. That & minor changes to nose cone pulet or maybe not & some very minor rear wing changes. THE WHOLE car looked basic & unfinished in the 1st place. I wanted them to accept & try PLENTY of updates keeping in mind 2012 atleast after Silverstone. I am very dissapointed by " We will come up with a better car next year" . This is exactly like LAST YEAR. Now they have a 5 year period of cushion for the new team bullcrap. I feel very sad for the drivers.

[dren]

The team took a rather good approach to the testing period this year. They had a car setup to test KERS (new to the team), and to work out other reliability issues, cooling, etc. The performance package came at the last test. The car seemed to perform well and the team seemed relatively happy.

The car wasn't setup well the first few races and struggled. I think it was just as good or better than the Renault out of the box, but the Renault was much more sorted at the start of the season.

The W02 is either not performing how the team expected, or it is and the design goals weren't set high enough.

[Mr.S]

Dren you write a lot of false stuff. What you need 11 out of 15 days to test out the basic stuff liker KERS & REAR wing???? The cooling they got it all horribly wrong. The question is all that tests meant --- to be honest. When you have an update as big as an exhaust system with new floor,barge boards & frong wings & along with small bits here & there then it is futile. You have to test all the stuff & then test teh reliablity & cooling. What is the gain in testing a VERY BASIC car which has nothing in it??


Add to it the update came in the before last day & the last day had rain as forecasted. They barely had dry running. It took them 3-4 races to even come to grips with the cooling problems & sort it out. The whole period till Silverstone,all that running could have been completed by pre-season testing. Then would have seen the cooling issues & the lack of DF & hopefull would have debuted a new exhaust SOONER.

THE car was much & I mean MUCH slower than Renault. Renault was actually the 2nd fastest car in the start & got 2 P3's & if Kubica was there could well have qualified higher & got more points. Its another thing that Mclaren,Merc & Ferrari improved while Renault stagnated.

In the begining even Sauber's pace was as similar to Merc,look at them now. Add to it Force India were nowhere & have taken a BIG step.As for your last lines I think the design goals WERE very low. They had no idea about EBD & did not have any idea how to recover the downforce lost by banning of Double Diffuser.

[munudeges]

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.

I think you need to re-read that paragraph because it does not paint the impression of progress that you want it to. Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

[beelsebob]

I think you need to re-read that paragraph because it does not paint the impression of progress that you want it to. Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

Yes, Merc did buy the team on that basis – they bought it on the basis that they were a back end team that had improved their car to a mid field one – a good improvement, and well worth investing in. They have now hit a wall trying to break into the top 3 – this is not unusual, in the past 20 odd years only really RedBull have been able to beat McLaren and Ferrari consistently. Getting stuck here is nothing to be ashamed of (though it doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to do better).

[xpensive]

...
Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

I consider this a valid point, does anyone believe that Daimler or MS would have been interested in the team one year earlier?

[marcush.]

life is short .Ha anyone forgotten how they struggled in race 1 .Kers switching on and off at will..did they even finish the race ? that was a hopelkess disaster and mind you they had luck the first race was ditched!
To be NOT ready for race one AFTER dropping development of W01 so early AND coming up with that roughed out box is not really a sign of being on top of the issues.
To me it looks they loost an awful lot of time after the season finals test they did on the Pirellis and had to redo major things maybe they even reshuffled work inside Mgp? why else would you cranlk out a half ready car after having a longer than normal developement time..and run into issues with car systems in the first race..solving most of them only after returning to europe...I guess the boat had considerable tide after race 1 and they got a waver from todt and Bernie to use 3 liter engines in China in exchange for 5/8 of fuel tank filling...to calm down the board..

x-mind you Brawn went there first ...it was expected to make a turnaround of sorts.

[Richard]

X - They wouldn't have bought them a year earlier because it was a Honda brand with a Honda engine. I don't think a big manufacturer would sell to another big manufacturer.

As I see it, Merc were limited to buying an independent team that was not running Renault or Ferrari engines. Oh, and the owner had to be willeng to sell, so that rules out Force India and Williams.

Anyway, they had no choice once they agreed to supply Brawn's engines because they are limited by the engine supply rules.

[dren]

Dren you write a lot of false stuff. What you need 11 out of 15 days to test out the basic stuff liker KERS & REAR wing???? The cooling they got it all horribly wrong. The question is all that tests meant --- to be honest. When you have an update as big as an exhaust system with new floor,barge boards & frong wings & along with small bits here & there then it is futile. You have to test all the stuff & then test teh reliablity & cooling. What is the gain in testing a VERY BASIC car which has nothing in it??

Considering several other teams fought for the good portion of a season to sort out their KERS packages, I think you need more days than you give them credit for. Maybe the team wanted to, or more likely needed to, extend the time until the final performance package was fitted. We don't know. The W02 had a lot of issues early on and I bet the team figured they were going to have some of those.

[xpensive]

Let me rephrase Richard;

...
Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

I consider this a valid point, does anyone believe that Daimler or MS would have been interested in the team if they had the same results as one year earlier?

[Mr.S]

I think you need to re-read that paragraph because it does not paint the impression of progress that you want it to. Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

Yes, Merc did buy the team on that basis – they bought it on the basis that they were a back end team that had improved their car to a mid field one – a good improvement, and well worth investing in. They have now hit a wall trying to break into the top 3 – this is not unusual, in the past 20 odd years only really RedBull have been able to beat McLaren and Ferrari consistently. Getting stuck here is nothing to be ashamed of (though it doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to do better).

HONDA were never & I mean never a back-marker. Jaguar was a below mid level team. Honda were an above average team. HONDA were near to the level where Merc are,albeit in a less competitive enivironment. If you look at their seasons, BAR HONDA actually had the 2nd or 3rd best car in a season after the dominating ferrai,jenson got deserving podiums. The car was a very regular point earner & an average team. THE TEAM was VERY heavily funded & a large sized team. Add to it that they had Ross Brawn. HONDA WERE ALWAYS a pretty good time,it's not like it was a Minardi level team. Red Bull or TOrro Rosso took over Minardi if i remember correctly & that was the ABSOLUTE back-marker.

The team has had barely any improvement in terms of results. HONDA had achieved better than 4th. So historically or considering their best peroformance bar 2009 , the team performed worse.

[beelsebob]

I think you need to re-read that paragraph because it does not paint the impression of progress that you want it to. Trying to effectively ignore 2009 doesn't seem like a good idea because 2009 was the basis on which Mercedes bought the team and Schumacher got involved. To have a half season lead on everyone and then throw it away is not progress.

Yes, Merc did buy the team on that basis – they bought it on the basis that they were a back end team that had improved their car to a mid field one – a good improvement, and well worth investing in. They have now hit a wall trying to break into the top 3 – this is not unusual, in the past 20 odd years only really RedBull have been able to beat McLaren and Ferrari consistently. Getting stuck here is nothing to be ashamed of (though it doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to do better).

HONDA were never & I mean never a back-marker.

That's how they finished 9th in the constructors is it?

[Mr.S]

If you require 15 days of pre-season testing to sort out KERS you dont deserve to be a front running. team. The team does like a 100 laps each day. That is like 2 times the race distance. That is like 26-30 races in itself.


Seriously I dont care who took how many days to sort out KERS. They should have debuted with a full fledged car otherwise its useless. They actually harmed the KERS testing. With all the tests they never tested the full spec car which they were gonna run & see problems cropped. MS had KERS failure more than once.

[Richard]

OK, so if Brawn had the same results as Honda?

Well if Merc were wanting to get into F1, and the Brawn was using Merc engines, then probably yes. Merc's only option was to buy a mid ranking team not linked to a competing manufacturer, so that's FI or Brawn.

Don't discount the ties formed with the engine supply deal, Merc started supplying Brawn when they only had Honda results. They were rumoured to be wanting to disengage from McLaren, so Brawn came along in the winter of 2007 as a new best friend to replace Ron Dennis.

I'd say the WCC and WDC brought forward the inevitable (and probably inflated the deal).

edit - we also have to factor in the Toyota pull out. Merc bought in when Toyota were still competing so that excluded Williams (and the team formerly known as Toyota)