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Mercedes AMG has announced it has signed two engineers from Red Bull Racing to strengthen the technical department following the departure of Ross Brawn as team principal.
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... ead#unread 
http://grandprix247.com/2013/12/02/laud ... n-anybody/Niki Lauda has shone more light on the behind the scenes manoeuvring to prise Lewis Hamilton away from McLaren at the end of last season, with secret talks scheduled for the early hours before the Singapore night race.
“I had to see him in his room between two to four in the morning. I was never with a strange racing driver in a room between two to four in the morning,” he said.
“I remember very well the discussion because he was on pole position with McLaren, was basically winning everything and I asked him ‘Would you consider going over to Mercedes?.’ And he said ‘Why should I go. This car is winning, all I want to do is win, and your car is not winning’.
“I said ‘---, he’s right’,” grinned the Austrian.
Lauda’s response was to tell Hamilton that if he stayed with McLaren, the team that had supported him since he was a youngster, he would always be former boss Ron Dennis’s baby.
“But if you make the Mercedes win after [Michael] Schumacher, you might be a bigger legend than anybody else. He woke up and said ‘Let’s talk about it’. So this really was the catch for him.”
The next day Hamilton was heading for victory in the race.
Lauda feared a victory and intense pressure from McLaren and Dennis, the boss for whom he had won his own third title in 1984, might sway Hamilton’s mind again.
“I was sitting in front of the television and said ‘Please crash. Please retire’. I was sitting and waiting for this and Bingo! Gearbox gone. I went to see him [Hamilton] right after.” (Reuters)
He is just managing expectations, because the general media consensus is that Mercedes will fight for the title in 2014. Even Ross Brawn said that after signing Lewis its was all about 2014. Then Lauda, Wolff and Lowe came in and now the goal have moved to 2015 and 2016. I think internally Mercedes will be very disappointed if they get beaten by Red Bull again with that big of a margin. Mercedes want progress thats why this season has kind have put the pressure on themselves to do better for 2014. Like Toto said the have the structure in place they have more financial backing from Stuttgart. So everything is in place for a good season. But as Director its better to calm the expectations because surprise is always better then disappointment. I personally expect Mercedes to fight head to head with Red Bull ( McLaren, Ferrari) for the title. Everything less then 3 wins 8 poles and 360 WCC points is a disappointment in my eyes. Because of bigger budget, reaping the benefits of the technical structure and new rules.Bredd wrote:http://www.espnf1.com/mercedes/motorspo ... 38589.html
Decent interview but I hope toto is downplaying stuff for 2014 because I can't take any more red bull domination.
Finally....SectorOne wrote:http://i.imgur.com/zpgyu9Q.jpg
I don't know if it's a typo but it says: "Closing date: 2nd January 2013" Soo either it's from last year or it's a typo from them?Glyn wrote:Finally....SectorOne wrote:http://i.imgur.com/zpgyu9Q.jpg
