Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[Tim.Wright]

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EDIT wrong topic

[xpensive]

Neither Symonds or Brawn have a university engineering degree, both worked their way up the long way, while the latter started off as milling machine operator with MrM's old team and later windtunnel technicial with Williams.

I think it's safe to say that both men's positions as Technical directors has been administrative only.

[marcush.]

hmmmm..

It still is beyond me how come your idea that holding a degree only will enable you to come up with ideas or do maths...
it certainly can help but its the same with a virtuoso violinist..ddoes he have to study music to get there .? i don´t think so... the relevant things you will not even have to learn as they are there clear in front of you..most of the topics we cover here have more to do with common sense and logic as anything else..

[xpensive]

Ooops, tender toes there?

It's simply my xperience after 20+ years as an engineer that you need an adequate theoretical background in order to understand new technical areas, while I have difficulties to see any other business developing as fast as F1.

Just imagine everything you have to grasp as a hands-on technical manager within F1, aerodynamics, tyres, suspension technology, composite materials, engine-analysis and what not. Administration is a different thing alltogether, where human empathy, common gut-feeling and a lot of hard work can take you a long way.

The reason why what we cover on F1T is more common sense than anything else is that it seems difficult to engage more than a few members in a technical analysis involving numbers and arithmetic. Believe me, I have tried several times.

[siskue2005]

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 ?

go and troll somewhere else dude!
this is a tech forum!

[LionKing]

One of good examples of great German engineering is Audi R15+. Yes, they lost 24h LeMans in 2009. to Peugeot, but won 2010 race 1-2-3 back in style. And major improvement was in aerodynamics area. I am not saying that there are no good engineers all over Europe or in England where most F1 teams are located...

Yes, but Audi won Le Mans this year not because of outright car performance, Peugeot cars was like 3 seconds a lap faster but all of them retired due the reliability reasons. Of course Le Mans is an endurance race and they deserved to win by having the best speed and reliability combination. If the Audi had the performance to match Peugeot they would have at least used it in qualifying laps even though they might not want to that speed in the race. I think last few years with Citroen in rallying, Renault in F1 and Peugeot in LeMans French manufacturers seem to do well....

[ggajic]

Yes, but Audi won Le Mans this year not because of outright car performance, Peugeot cars was like 3 seconds a lap faster but all of them retired due the reliability reasons.

I simply took Audi of example how Germans are doing everything - always push 100% even if you are not best at least try to give your best. That is much what Schumacher has been doing through his all career and I have healthy respect for that kind of approach to job. I think that German football team also gives good insight into this kind of mental approach. And that is also approach I expect from Mercedes GP - not to sit in 4th and wait for Renault to overtake them in championship..

[marcush.]

all the degrees and maths have not helped Brawn GP.. even if Ross him self is not holding an academic degree ...the boffins do maths but don´t grasp the problem,right?
running big simulations with the wrong maths or the right maths but too many wrong assumptions might be as useful as rolling the dice to establish your cold pressure settings for Q3.I´m aware of this .I have my doubts if Brawn GP does ..

[mep]

I checked wiki and they both are engineers.
Pat Symonds was at Cranfield University.
Ross Brawn studied at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in Harwell.
Later he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering (DEng) from Brunel University for his services to motorsport.

[xpensive]

I do not think this is correct mep, according to Wiki, Symonds studied at Gresham's school, which is a pre-university private scool, before joining Toleman as a race-engineer. Brawn has his honorary degree, but so has the former prime-minister of Sweden. That's ok though, you can call yourself prince if you wish, but I think "lawyer" is a protected title everywhere?

Perhaps what Mercedes lacks a Design manager with an overall understanding of the entire package, not just a specialized aerodynamicist like Bigois? Newey and Oatley are very different in that respect, not only with university degrees, but having worked in most areas of race-car design over the past 30 years.

So is Mike Gascoyne, who unfortunetaly never finished his thesis.

[andrew]

Honorary degrees tend to be an insult to those who have studied and works hard to get an actual degree. Case in point, Jeremy Clarkson is a doctor of engineering thanks to 2 honrary doctorates! It's bad enough that someone decided to give him one, but two?! What were they smoking? The guy can't even use a hammer!!

Anyhoo, to Merc GP and the problems therein....

Last year, 2 things worked in their favour. 1. An exploitable loophole in the regs and 2. it was a small team. Last year, decisions seemed to be made at ground level (Ross Brawn & Nick Fry) now it all seems to be through a bunch of suits in a boardroom in Stuttgart that all the decsions are being made, which is not good for moving the team forward.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Andrew,

So the problems they currently face are as a result of whats going on in a boardroom?(stuttgart and not munich by the way)
And as a result of a loophole they exploited?

No mate, not by a long shot.

The problem is the team lost 400 staff last year and that has an influence on things.
The problem is not knowing if the team will exist in 2010.

Blaming fat cats and boardrooms should be reserved for banks and oil companies.

Wait for Mercs influence to take effect, it took Ferrari four years and I remember the drama of 96 with driveshafts popping out etc.
9 months isnt even a full development cycle in an F1 car, let alone rebuilding a team that was on the brink

[aral]

I checked wiki and they both are engineers.
Pat Symonds was at Cranfield University.
Ross Brawn studied at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in Harwell.
Later he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering (DEng) from Brunel University for his services to motorsport.

If Brawn was studying at UKAEA, then would he not be a physicist? His engineering degree is honorary, so therefore he is not an engineer. But then again, he hasn't taken any credit, or blame, for engineering the Merc or even the Brawn. These were designed by persons employed by him.

[xpensive]

A university-degree engineer beginning his career as a milling machine operator for MrM's crap-team, yeah right...

Whatever management heroics he did last year, it didn't repeat itself this year, wonder if Button was that smart or that stupid when he left?

[marcush.]

so lets combine:
Michael Schumacher ...the average talented driver got help from three amateurs in Racecarengineering ,namely Rory Byrne,a chemist ,Ross Brawn a machinist,and Pat Symmonds to win 2 of his 7titles...to go on with 2 of them to ferrari to bag another 5 .. .More to it Pat Symmonds was leading Renault when Alonso bagged his 2 titles..
so lets count ...we had :2 Williams ,3Mclaren Championships ,and 1 Ferrari Championship without them being involved since 1994 ..I might have forgotten some ,but the pattern is clear:
If you want to win the championship ,avoid hiring a doctor to lead your technical group and find a driver that is not overly talented..or adaptable(?)..
One thing is clear :the guys not holding the degrees managed not only to get to the top in these outfits but did as well bag most of the titles in THIS time were everything is higly sophisticated ,computer sims and taken to all limits and still most reliable ever...please explain.

btw ..Bigois was more than Aero at Prost/Ligier already ....and Newey was famous for Aero ...and called a waste for his mechanical ability as he compromised everything for the sake of aero...culminating in cars like Leytonhouse CG901 ...which really worked well on one track ...so study or not you learn as you go along and you learn most from the things that went wrong ..that one cost him his job.