Mercedes GP 2011

[munudeges]

The curious thing is that BGP's chief designer, Jörg Zander, left on June 19 2009, just after Jenson Button had won four in a row and his sixth of the season. I think Zander, who had his degree from Cologne University, had seen through Ross Brawn by then?

Something weird went on that's for sure, and it wasn't anything to do with the 'resource restriction'. Why would you leave just as your hard work is coming to fruition? Almost immediately after he left the team started to struggle to win races and developments they brought didn't work. They had a struggle with that two-element wing that continues to this day and even with the double diffuser that year it didn't work without the right front wing.

[Richard]

Zander seems to have had a habit of changing teams mid season. He started with 13 years with Toyota, then 2 years with BAR/Honda, 2 with Williams (left mid season for personal reasons), 1 with Sauber, 2 with Honda/Brawn (left mid season).

If he was so good then why haven't we heard of him since then?

I think the Zander line is a red herring.

[xpensive]

I believe that Zander as a scooled and trained design-engineer, at the time with six wins in eight races in his back, found it unbearable to take his orders from MrM's old milling machine operator.

Believe me, design-engineers can be very proud individuals.

[Mr.S]

BRAWN GP was a very good car. EVEN without DD it was better than what merc is this year. Remember Ferrari & Mclaren had KERS which gives what 0.3-0.4-0.5 s depending on the track & still BRAWN GP were ahead despite that,even in the second half.

No, it gives them 0.3-0.5 seconds a lap this year when weight distribution is fixed, and you get no advantage from not running KERS. In 09 it was much more border line, because not having KERS allowed you to do much more with ballast. And the McLaren was a clearly faster car by the second half of the year.

HERE ARE the results for the last 9 out of 17 races of 2009 season -

BRAWN & Mclaren both won 2 races each.BOTH had 3 Podiums.

The number of points -


BRAWN GP - 7 + 2 + 12 + 2 + 18 + 7 + 3 + 5 + 11 = 65 POINTS

Mclaren - 1 + 14 + 13 + 3 + 3 + 12 + 6 + 6 = 58 POINTS.

So there you go you can see that both had on an average similar pace.Brawn scored more points if that is an indicator. KERS in a straight with that horse power would mean about 0.3 seconds as a minimum in ANY circuit. Add to it was very difficult to overtake a KERS powerd car & considerably easier for a KERS power car to overtake a non KERS powered car. There were races where Force India was much quicker than Ferrari on the straights & closed the gap but ferrari hung on with their KERS making up for their comparative lack of top speed.ALSO KERS helped in making great starts.

Ballast or no ballast,you can play whatever you want. It gives very little benefits,minor adjustments in set-ups & the way a car handles. If KERS did not have significant BENEFITS neither Ferrari nor Mclaren would have used it considering its costs. Why waste money on something which barely gives any benefits???

So Brawn without KERS with limited resources got more points than Mclaren & Ferrari. Add to it that in the last 8 races BRAWN had 58 points to Red Bull's 59 points. A single point(1) point difference in the last 8 races. You can compare the resource of Brawn with Mclaren or Ferrari or Red Bull.EVERY year the car is going down. BHP > WO1 > W02

[marcush.]

Zander seems to have had a habit of changing teams mid season. He started with 13 years with Toyota, then 2 years with BAR/Honda, 2 with Williams (left mid season for personal reasons), 1 with Sauber, 2 with Honda/Brawn (left mid season).

If he was so good then why haven't we heard of him since then?

I think the Zander line is a red herring.

20 years in Motorsports is a long time after all.You can see he left more than once during the season ,so he was prepared to either fight for his targets till the end or he had issues outside the team that made it difficult to work in F1.

We simply don´t know and considering he still offers consultancy and engineering with his company JZ -engineering it´s rather his strong individual personality and aim to lead than anything else...

[xpensive]

I have walked out of a number of positions as design-engineering manager, simply because I was asked to do something I didn't believe in. If that was the the case with Zander at Brawn, I guess you can say that recent history has proven him right?

[munudeges]

Zander was in many teams that have ended up imploding in on themselves. I think the only link that we can see is that he's a pretty proud individual, a 'this is what I recommend and I'm not budging attitude' that all hardcore engineers have and a willingness to simply walk when he thinks it isn't right. Those characters are pretty abrasive and they don't do weasely politics.

To turn your back on a dominant car having worked hard and waited a long time to get yourself into that position when things should be going well is something that doesn't sit right with me.

[xpensive]

Perhaps there was a combination of different developments, if Zander over time had realized that his boss was not as technical as the hype had suggested, while Brawn had started to believe in the same hype, after the six wins and being courted by Daimler?

[marcush.]

Zanders Engineering company , situated in Switzerland:

http://www.jz-engineering.com/english/c ... ut-us.html

To me the fact he describes his role with Honda /BrawnGP$ as deputy tech director is maybe/surely telling us something ...


surely there is a reason why his first point in core competences is :

vehivle concept development.... ..and voila why would you leave in july?
It´s crunch time for next years car.If you leave then nobody can claim the moron produced was your work!
To me very clearly this is seeing the disaster unfolding and preferring not to be involved with that s..t is better than shut up and leave later and called guilty for what was basically not your concept.

[Morteza]

So the team didn't turn out to be what Mercedes thought they had bought. They were WDC and WCC champions, but didn't have the capability to to defend it. But can Mercedes turn the table? Can Mercedes GP become a top team? This is what I doubt about the most.

[MIKEY_!]

In time i think yes. How much time? No idea. Will see if the corporate will is there to do it, BMW certainly didn't have it.

[munudeges]

To me the fact he caall´s himself deputy tech director at BrawnGP is maybe telling us something ...

I'm sure X would say he told us so.......... It's pretty clear to me that Zander was anything but a deputy in the team, and what happened after he left confirms it. Anyone have any idea who the official 'Technical Director' was at Brawn at that time, because I don't?

[xpensive]

For what it's worth, F1T's database also lists Zander as "DTD", why I guess that the "TP" was doubling as "TD" as well?

http://www.f1technical.net/f1db/cars/956/brawn-bgp001

"Told you so"? Come now, I'm way too modest for something like that...

[marcush.]

Willis comments on leaving Honda in july 2006-remarkably the 2007 contender was to be a total flop:
http://paddocktalk.com/news/html/module ... &sid=59112

Directed by comitee from the disatnce and turning a competent car of 2006 into a rolling disater ignoring or forgetting all lessons learned ...

And furthermore Nakamoto as willis follow up as head of the komitee:

btw Honda made according to Nakasan and Fry considerable investment into the Windtunnel and a new machine shop ,comissioned mid 2006...

They build new shop and stayed with an outdated structure ???

[raymondu999]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/94335
More new blood for the team. Aldo Costa is reportedly joining Mercedes