djones wrote: ↑20 Jul 2020, 12:44
I think their leadership is without a doubt very good.
But I do wonder if Mercedes just put insane money into the development. It's not public knowledge, so they could be spending twice as much as even Ferrari for all we know.
I said this months before the season even started, but this year they are so fast because of Ferrari and their cheating last year. Mercedes had to try and equal a target that was 'fake'. The only main way to do this would have been to dump more and more money into the engine development etc. The result is clear for all to now see.
How do you know, Ferrari and Honda are not "putting insane money into the development and it's not public knowledge"?
How do they "put insane money into the development" without showing in the books? Daimler is the parent company holding 60% shares in Mercedes Petronas F1 team and a complete 100% holding into Mercedes-Benz HPP (engine division). HPP has to produce their accounts as they are public listed and here is a 2018 financial statement of HPP. They have spent 116 million in R&D expenses for 2018 as per their statement (vs 93 million in 2017). Of that, they have paid 46.8 million in "Wages and Salaries" in 2018 (vs 43.2 million in 2017). That can be explained by the raise in salaries and bonuses.
HPP now is NOT just an F1 engine division anymore and also undertakes Formula E, along with Hybrid supplies to Mercedes road cars and many other automobile initiatives.
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/docu ... cf8ca00479
We will soon see the 2019 statement and you can compare their expenses, which usually be out in October. If there is an unusual surge in expenses, especially in the Wages & Salaries (other than usual raise in salaries and bonuses), WITHOUT additional project undertakings, then they might have invested more for 2019 to get the performance benefit in 2020 engines.
On the Mercedes Petronas F1 team front, they haven't changed the number of personnel working their since past 2 years and are estimated to be around 1000 people (R&D, non R&D). If you spend some time, you will get a fair idea of account statements on this front too.
Keep an eye on this for their accounts statement.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/comp ... ng-history