munudeges wrote:Cocles wrote:Why not mention that Red Bull caught up in the middle of a season, because Brawn lacked the money and personel to develop the car at the same pace as their competitors?
Brawn had 100 million from Honda to get through the season. If money was a problem in 2009 they would been knocking on the door of every potential sponsor. They ended 2009 as the richest team on the grid, as per their own accounts.
On top of that they were winning races, had a big lead technically with the double diffuser and continuity with it into 2010.
The facts, as they stand, do not support the hyperbole of Brawn as a downtrodden poor team, as Ross Brawn himself has tried to paint a picture of.
JohnsonsEvilTwin wrote:You are ignoring the facts mun, as ever.
Brawn bought the team for a quid in december 08.
Honda had NO sponsorship(earth cars anyone?)
Honda's gift, wasn't so much a gift but a lifeline to ensure survival through 2009. you cannot pay bills with promises, 90 days and invoices need settling.
The team was given an advance for its 2009 championship winning year by Bernie. THIS is where you are confusing matters.
The books looked great,but that was due to the Money forwarded on by Bernie.To get a fair reflection of the teams financial status, you need to take the advance out. Any 12 year old knows this.
Indeed 44% of the team was cut, to ensure survival. Something Brawn admits was the hardest things hes ever had to do.
You continuously failed to see that a) the forwarded money by Bernie would influence the books.
And b)losing 44% of your capability along with tech know how from Japan will have an adverse affect on your team.
This topic has been discussed to the death already and still you are posting the same fallacies.
JET is right, you are forgetting the fact that Brawn and 4 others ought the team for only £10 and a £35 UK administration fee to say to Companies House that they had bought Honda F1 Racing and were renaming the company Brawn GP.
Honda gifted the team a car that had the bult of a massive €440m investment into it, the last car developed outside the RRA to a point as it had 4 tunnels running on it.
Honda gave Brawn GP a €75m compansatory payment, and as the team was in effect a new entry they lost the €38.9m that Honda would have got from the 2008 seasons TV money and prize money as well. They had given Rubens a 6 GP deal as their origional plan was from Turkey was to run another driver from Brazil who was to bring €12m to the team. That driver was Bruno Senna. However they ditched their plans to run him as they got the investment from 3 sources; €10m from Virgin, €8.5m from MIG Bank and a small but important €3.5m deal from Henri Lloyd as well. They also had the €10m from Bridgestone. This gave the team a budget of arround €125m.
However, they had to cut the size of Brackley from 950 staff to 400, however they managed to make this 50 more jobs so they reduced to 450 staff to just before Monaco. Honda had already shut its Engine plant that was in Brackley, whitch has a futher 300 staff in it, arround 80 to 90 of those guys went back to Japan, the rest melted into either Mercedes High Performance Engines (as it was then) or went to Cosworth who were hiring again.
In 2009 the books just about ballanced as the team made an loss of just €400,000. However there was a massive ammount of budget lost to redundancy payouts, as under UK law, they needed to pay at minimum 12 weeks pay to those guys. Some, as they had been with the team since the Tyrell days had quite decent contracts, whitch on redundancy gave them an extra weeks pay on top of their 12 weeks statuatory for every year they worked for the company. There was a rumor of one guy walking away with 23 weeks on top of his 12 weeks redundancy.
The team survived, but if the team were to survive into 2010 they needed to trim staff futher, and also secure a decent sponsor budget, as they had lost the advance Bernie gave them.
Mercedes bought the team from Ross Brawn for a reported €75m, with every one of its board of directors walking away with arround €11.5m minimum.
Mercedes are pumping €150m into the team a year, and have a budget of €220m a year for its whole F1 activities. Mercedes AMG now has a reported budget of arround €320m a year, whitch is a bit on the high side for my liking, i think its closer to €275m as Petronas is only giving them €35m a year.
The team are also operating at more or less close to the RRA aggreement with 550 staff now, they only operate one tunnel that was last updated in 2008, and their CFD is decent as well, but not the best in F1. The plant in Brackley is operating at arround 70% of what its built to do, they have one set of out houses with nothing in them post Honda, last year there was rumor that Hispania was to take them over for a rent of €4m a year, as Hispania already use the Mercedes #2 tunnel they would have had a reduction on costs there for Hispania.
However nothing has came into those buildings as of yet.
Mercedes are running at what they call "optimum" factory performance now, they have everything streamlined and as compact as they can. They are only one of two teams that are running to the RRA to the letter of the law who are close to the limits of the RRA.
Money is still tight, but it isnt as tight as it once was for the team. the team has survived, they went lean to survive. Now they just need add a little performance into the fat they now have to play with. 2010 was a staging year, a rebuilding one, 2011 was a re-structuring one, 2012 could be a knolege re building one, with a couple of GP wins ideally. I think 2013 and 2014 will see Mercedes mixing it for championships. However that is if Ferrari, Sauber, Toro Rosso and Red Bull dont expand and go testing outside the RRA and FOTA this year, whitch is expected.
Mercedes have the resource and infrustructure, and i think the finance to win a Title, however they just need to be smart and evolve and re-define who and what the team is about. It took Newey, Horner and Marko from 2005 (Newey from 2006) till 2010 to win a title. It takes 5 years to make it to the front. Rome wasnt built in a day. However some of the board in Stutgart may get a little impatient, and the team needs to be a year ahead of 5 years this year.
Can they do it, yes.[/quote]
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