Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2013

[FoxHound]

but it would be nice
if the mudslinging would not be aimed at others (teams etc.), just in attempts to rationalize & rectify the performance of
your own heroes.

@ Gato
If you had checked previous 2010/11/12 iterations of this thread you will see what I mean. Aimless criticisms of the team, people with proven records labelled incompetent and so on and so forth.
My comparison with the Crimson Bovines was a simple one which is not to denigrate them, but to show that in F1 you cannot just join and win.
Even the greatest operations need time.

It is not helpful or constructive to the thread to be posting stinging attacks on individuals of the the team or the team themselves. Especially if you do so every day as in the case of some people.

If we take the emotions out of it, we could speculate what is wrong, discuss why it went wrong. We can look at various reasons which lead to this, and then once isolated, we can move on to a prescribed set of solutions. It is only ever speculation..but for me this is a sound way forward.

[munudeges]

The sad thing about Mercedes is that they are a long, long, long way from 'joining and winning'. In fact they were 'joining and winning' because they took over Brawn as champions who had a healthy technical lead at the time that they should have carried over. However, let's not let facts get in the way here. The usual response to this is some sob story about staff cuts which are not borne out in any way shape or form by the 2009 accounts of the team. Brawn and the directors were made extremely rich as a result however and Mercedes were the ignorant fall guys.

They are currently loitering around and getting beat by Saubers, Force Indias and Williams - the point being that this should not be happening given that Mercedes definitely do have budgets several times the size of those teams beating them. I find that amusing and somewhat irconic given that there are some characters around here who want to pluck figures out of thin air about Red Bull's budget and then proceed to tell us that that is why Mercedes isn't winning. It's a farcical feat of mental gymnastics. Mercedes are getting beat by an awful lot more teams than Red Bull.

There are a few of us on this thread who have consistently pointed the finger at Norb and it appears that he has now paid the price once the Daimler higher-ups have realised how they got scammed. This team was incompetent as BAR, incompetent as Honda, lucked into winning for a brief period after budgets running into billions with normal service being resumed pretty quickly as Mercedes stupidly took over. The team collectively has always been incompetent and that is backed up by results.

[marcush.]

Without any doubt Brawn and Fry have filled their pockets in this deal .
Without a doubt Schumacher had good reason not to sign the contract he was offered but wait for the team to rise their game-which has not happened ,period.
So where puts this Haugs decision to quit as well?
Believe it or not the whole affair is a money drain big time for Daimler who are simply too occopied with themselves to admit to their mistake.
How Lauda convinced them to stay is a mystery to me especially considering the climate inside DAI and in the world .Maybe the
lack of potential buyers is one reason.
It´s very telling how Zetsche refuses officially to spend more money for formula 1 as demanded by Lauda but already they are opening the pocket to buy out Aabar(Not Brawn or Fry buying those shares).
My view is Brawn and Fry have contracts to stay for a considerable time with the team .maybe 4 or 5 years and maybe the moneys they receive are in fact the shares they have sold to Daimler (They receive the money only for work they do )so both of them are biding their time maybe.
Fact is Zetsche said in public Brawn will spearhead the team for the coming years as a contractual obligation.
nobody can deny there is something fishy going on with this team for a very long time ,not just MGP times and nobody could ever get to the root of it and erase it.I think it´s a lot harder to get rid of wrong habits than it is to start correctly.

[dren]

Lauda helped secure big revenues for Mercedes with Eccelstone. That likely solidified Mercedes's F1 involvement.

[raymondu999]

On Schumacher at Mercedes, here's a nice excerpt from an Autosport Plus feature by Pat Symonds:

I , for one, was delighted and recalled a conversation we had when he left Benetton for Ferrari. I had asked him if he thought he would finish his career at Ferrari. He answered that he still owed a debt of gratitude to Mercedes for the support they gave him early in his career and hoped that one day he could repay that.

Of course Mercedes were not a complete F1 team in those days, merely an engine supplier, but when they announced their purchase of the Brawn team it was no surprise to see Michael return as their lead driver. Comebacks are often as futile as any attempt to relive the past but here, I felt, was a real chance for someone to show that age should not be a barrier to success.

Original: http://plus.autosport.com/premium/featu ... ial-racer/

[marcush.]

Lauda helped secure big revenues for Mercedes with Eccelstone. That likely solidified Mercedes's F1 involvement.

Formula 1 is not a profit centre for Daimler these days ,I´m pretty sure.

[user001]

Lauda helped secure big revenues for Mercedes with Eccelstone. That likely solidified Mercedes's F1 involvement.

As i recall from an older article the agreement came off the condition that if merc finishes on 4th place at the constructors they also get a bonus payment from bernie's pocket. Otherwise they don't. Am i right?

[FoxHound]

Lauda helped secure big revenues for Mercedes with Eccelstone. That likely solidified Mercedes's F1 involvement.

Formula 1 is not a profit centre for Daimler these days ,I´m pretty sure.

Can you please point out where Daimler ever pulled a profit from F1 in 20 years please?

[Richard]

they took over Brawn as champions who had a healthy technical lead at the time that they should have carried over.

Lets not flog that dead horse again. The 2009 season was a fluke that was already fading halfway through the season. They were a mid ranking team bankrolled by a big manufacturer for many seasons before that, and a mid ranking team bankrolled by a big manufacturer for many seasons after that. We all know 2009 was an aberration due to a regulatory loophole.

Of course Merc may have been fooled into seeing the one off aberration as a sustainable success. There is a special thread for that... http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... ead#unread

[Cocles]

If we take the emotions out of it, we could speculate what is wrong, discuss why it went wrong. We can look at various reasons which lead to this, and then once isolated, we can move on to a prescribed set of solutions. It is only ever speculation..but for me this is a sound way forward.

This is what I would love to see in this thread.

[Mika1]

Earlier than expected, Lewis Hamilton made his first official visit to the Mercedes factory in Brackley, where the British measure was taken

The "Adventure Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton started earlier than expected. Already this week, the 27-year-old first appeared in the Mercedes factory in Brackley, as the team on request of 'motor-Total.com' confirmed. Previously had been assumed that the cooperation Hamilton with his new team until the 01.01.2013 is possible because he is still under contract until the end of McLaren.

Both teams scored but an agreement that allowed Hamilton in December a first meeting with his new colleagues. "Lewis was in the factory, where he met the team and completed some tasks", the outgoing motorsport director Norbert Haug.

In addition to a first meeting with his future engineers for Hamilton mainly routine tasks were on the program. Thus, for the new racing overalls taken measures and adjusted his seat. The Briton already in the simulator with his future car. By the end of the year, according to Mercedes no further meetings are planned.

Google translated a german website.

[raymondu999]

Mind providing us with the original German source?

[Neno]

Mind providing us with the original German source?

try copy quote, trow it/paste it in google translate. copy one of translated senteces and paste it in google search.

[gato azul]

Mind providing us with the original German source?

http://www.autobild.de/artikel/formel-1 ... 53902.html

[ringo]

There are a few of us on this thread who have consistently pointed the finger at Norb and it appears that he has now paid the price once the Daimler higher-ups have realised how they got scammed. This team was incompetent as BAR, incompetent as Honda, lucked into winning for a brief period after budgets running into billions with normal service being resumed pretty quickly as Mercedes stupidly took over. The team collectively has always been incompetent and that is backed up by results.

I think they have addressed that problem with the new appointments. expectably there should be an improvement in results.
It's a wait and see.

As for Hamilton coming over early, i think that is very good. Hamilton has been downplaying the expectations, but i do feel mercedes aim is to win the 2013 championship like any of the other top teams. It makes no sense to compete if you don't think you can win a championship.
They are going all out for 2013. It will be naive to think rule changes in 2014 are supposed to put a championship in your lap, when you haven't even seen what type of engines ferrari or renault are going to build.
They want to build a Brawn2009 car again, they're not saying it out loud, but i know they want to dominate 2013. All those internal changes weren't for them to lay low for 2013 till things hopefully get better for 2014.