Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[twoshots]

...I really think talk of Mercedes leaving is more than just a tad premature at the moment.

I agree, Merc are running MGP effectively for free. All the money is from advertising (i.e. Petronas) with very little, if any, from Stuttgart.

Once things have stabilised and Merc have processes and SOP's for everything we'll see what they can do in the longer term.

[xpensive]

There's a new wind flowing in the corporate world, backstage tricks and half-naked ladies doesn't sell the way it used to, political correctness is creeping up everywhere. I was xtremely surprised to see Mercedes diving into this the way they did, in particular as their bavarian rival could see the writing on the wall.

[segedunum]

That was back in the 90s, and the fact that Newey was the designer and the fact that the cars were arguably more advanced back then with active suspension etc...

I cannot see the logic in that one...........anywhere. Newey is still the designer that Mercedes, Brawn and Schumacher have to beat and now they also have to beat McLaren and Ferrari as well, so nobbling anything that Newey designs isn't going to guarantee them wins. They need to beg someone like Rory Byrne to come back just to get started because they need to find a serious loophole next year, and he's then going to need to spend several years reorganising the technical team.

Whichever way you cut it it is well over three times as hard for Brawn and Schumacher to start winning with Mercedes as it was when they were at Ferrari.

It now takes at least 3-4 years to get the engineering base right before an assault on the title....

The problem is they're already a winning team, which is probably how Brawn was sold to Mercedes. The team has already had several years of building and it's essentially the same one that Honda ran, certainly on the technical side. The Mercedes board isn't going to be happy being told that they have to wait, and it is more likely to be five years or more. They're not going to wait that long to get their driver investment winning, and he isn't going to wait that long. Either way, the Mercedes board are going to feel cheated after they thought they'd bought into a winning team and they're not going to be happy that the marketing asset called Michael Schumacher they've invested in is going to have to wait several years to win and will likely have retired by then.

Saying that Mercedes are putting no money into the team cuts no ice. It's their name on the car, their brand and they are responsible for the liabilities. Alternatively, they could put a Mercedes engine in the back of a Red Bull and start winning tomorrow with Vettel in the driver's seat. I'm very surprised Mercedes jumped into this as well given that their German neighbours BMW baulked at what was required and Volkswagen have specifically stated that they only see value in winning as an engine manufacturer.

[twoshots]

They can only put an engine in the back of a Red Bull if McLaren let them, which they stopped them doing for this year, and this agreement lasts till 2012. Now can you see McLaren letting Red Bull get there hands on some more horsepower anytime soon?

But yes, jumping in as everyone else was jumping out will either be a very shrewd move or just crazy depending on how things pan out. Certain members of the Daimler board seem to want to be a silver Ferrari.

Whether Daimler should be putting in more money or not is there business, but the Petronas deal that is paying for all this racing is not exactly peanuts. Not McLaren/Ferrari sized money but enough for a good stab at it. They've got no excuses. At least they aren't trying to do all the work out of Cologne with Germany's crazy employment laws.

[PlatinumZealot]

I think that personal changes will inevitably happen at the end of the year. Germans like things done German so I think Mercedes will ship in their German engineers to build the 2011 car.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I think that personal changes will inevitably happen at the end of the year. Germans like things done German so I think Mercedes will ship in their German engineers to build the 2011 car.

I do hope so. The team needs an analytical approach to progress, and this hasnt been happening for whatever reason. There are 7 races left, Haug and Brawn need to be looking at why things went wrong, and how it can be rectified.

I wonder when a team designs a car, is it similar to car production in the sense that 5 designers bring their "design" to the table and the best one gets chosen.
Or is it a case of the 5 engineers working together during concept phase to reach hybridised concept of their combined ideas?

Loic Bigois has a lot to answer for the W01. Its barn door aero footprint is a result of his direction. Could this mean the end of Loic and a possible return on the cars for Jorg Zander who would fit in with the "german-ness"?

[PlatinumZealot]

I have no idea how they do it exactly. I do know that some engineers/designers are selfish and they only want their Ideas to go through. Sometimes they might let others bring their ideas to the table only for acknowledgment but not consideration. Then on the other hand you have guys that will not only consider others' ideas but also try them.

The Brawn I think was an average base car that benefited from extreme refinement. Then with the making of W01 you had another rule change and designers had to go back down to that base then build anew.

Maybe Loic can't even explain why the W01 is the way it is. The extreme refinements of the BGP01 in CFD and wind-tunnel over 18(?) months generated numerous "layers" of problems and solutions that I think was difficult to follow by the designers. In the end there was a car that the designers knew worked but they didn't fully understand exactly how it ended up working, because the computer did the majority of the refinements. With that, I think in creating the W01, the designers put themselves under pressure with the task to break down and evolve the BGP01, something that they didn't fully understand, in much less time and resources. Just what I think, it maybe wrong though.

[pipex]

John Owen sure has something to do with the aero of the MGP. It seems that he is hands-on, and Loic only supervises things... don't know. Brawn should evaluate where the improvements should be made, I don't think that aero is the only problem. Remember that they recalibrated the wind tunnel after the disastrous RA107 and the RA108, even when it was not that great, doesn't had the inherent aero faults of its predecessor. In my opinion, they need to reinforce the aero team (both senior and lower level staff) and bring/change more people to suspension/tires. They should try to poach people from Ferrari, they seem to always excel at suspension. Brawn and Schumacher should know a people or two...
As it was discussed before they should try to get Vasselon, and some people from Toyota. Well, with the staff reduction that McLaren/Ferrari/Red Bull should do maybe they can get someone, but i don't think that these teams will fire senior level staff.
Seems that last year car benefited from having Zander in the team and maybe he left because he was not being heard in the car development. After he left, they began to have tire performance issues...
The other day i was thinking that the suboptimal arrangement of the engine in the BGP last year, instead of hindering the performance of the car was actually enhancing it... after all the optimizations in the car, they began to go backwards instead of forwards in other words, maybe they had the same problem last year but the engine change reduced this problem temporarily.

[lotus7]

Assuming the MGP W01 does NOT have a miraculous improvement by the end of the season, Haug has set the stage for some personnel changes (from autosport.com):

Should after time not get the job done then you will change people," Haug added. "That's the name of the game for everybody.

Is Schu also regarded as personnel ?

[marcush.]

zander is now somewhere else ,is starup member of a company nothing to do with F1...

http://www.trive.mobi/
situated in munich

so maybe he wanted to come back to germany ?

back to merc... to even think of engineers available in Stuttgart capable of supervising a F1 project at this level with the prospect of instant sucess is
a bit too romatic... the passion is already in Formula 1 ,you wo´t find it somewhere in a engineering department in a big company languishing to be released to such a project..


they will try to hire or a t least get input from sources they trust ... so what
are their connections?
Haug ,as Mercedes man knows a lot of guys from Mclaren ..so ex man McCoglin would be a candidat ex Barnard protege... surely knows the trade..had insight into the toyota project last yearthrough StaefnGP involvement

Rory Byrne..I ´m sure they paid him a visit more than once and will try to get hold of at least his consultancy...if only for the old times when he was the brains behind all the successful cars.

Pat Symmonds ..the guy for the pits ...that would be the guy to get on top of the tyre trouble ....
Or Vasselon ,but is he to leaver Toyota,I´d think he is hoping for them to take over the HRT outfit end of next year?

[xpensive]

I think Daimler's biggest problem with this team is not the money, but the kudos lost to McLaren. Bringing the 7-time WDC out of retirement to drive for an already world championship team now looks like a gross miscalculation, which I'm afraid feels embarassing for everyone involved. If Schumacher retires again for next year, they will all look pretty stupid.

Perhaps the Daimler board got carried away by Ross Brawn and his 2009 results, which were obviously flattered by the diffuser and a very early sstart of design-work, why they didn't feel it necessary to retain any of the drivers or even chief designer Jörg Zander?

Strange indeed.

[mep]

Guys just wait. Its really to early to judge anybody.
Mercedes had no change to affect the desing of the current car.
Some updates dont turn a average car into a GP winner. You can't solve desings lapses
you made in a early desing state due to lack of manpower and money.
For next year they had the possibility to build the car from scratch.
We must wait how this car performs before we can judge anybody.

[marcush.]

byrne is the counterpart to Newey ..ideas loopholes lateral thinking...
if the basic idea was crap,thats the guy to give new direction imo

BUT
they seemed to be at sea with their raceteam ,strategies as well ..byrne will not solve this

so Symmonds would fit in there nicely.

[xpensive]

byrne is the counterpart to Newey ..ideas loopholes lateral thinking...
if the basic idea was crap,thats the guy to give new direction imo

BUT
they seemed to be at sea with their raceteam ,strategies as well ..byrne will not solve this

so Symmonds would fit in there nicely.

Pat Symonds and Ross Brawn in the same team, to what purpose?

[marcush.]

don´t forget they had this at Bennetton working for them

I think Brawn is more in administrative work nowadays whereas Symmonds seems to have that hands on itch still in him ..but of course thats more a feeling than based on knowledge.