Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2013

[TheBaverianBasterd]

Will Mercedes actually be supplying McLaren with their engines next season?

[elf341]

TheBavarianB*****d, in future kindly amalgamate multiple posts into a single one - your spray of replies is bordering on spam, and may be in breach of forum rules.
Regarding your sentiment, I must respectfully disagree, it's very easy to simply call something absurd without justification, and I think most members will agree that Ross generally spearheads unique approaches. Conspiracy theories have their own thread - much of your posting belongs there. Please help to keep the analysis here free of emotional imaginings and lean more towards technical, reasonable and rational evaluation.

[McG]

I agree with the Basterd. I also think that unless you're a mod or admin then you shouldn't be telling people what to do.

[munudeges]

English might not be your first language so let me help you:

What language were those articles written in bright spark? Please.......

If I have $1 in the bank and make a $1000 this year that doesn't make me richer than someone with $10,000 in the bank and $800 for the year...hope that clarifies. Cashflow for one year doesn't make Brawn richer than McLaren and Ferrari.

English might not be your first language so I'll clue you in to how Formula 1 works. Teams spend all their budgets every single season because they have to. They don't sit around with large amounts of cash in the bank because competition demands it. 2010 with the biggest injection of cash of everyone and a sizeable budget, plus a healthy performance lead with the double diffuser, should have seen them go from strength to strength the following year. It didn't.

What those articles does do is completely and utterly destroy once and for all the notion that somehow Brawn were this cash strapped team living from hand-to-mouth that was subsequently responsible for the poor performance as Mercedes.

[flmkane]

Excuse me, but that's just utter crap. Ferrari and Mclaren have income from other sources, such their roadcar and technology divisions. Red Bull is funded by... Red Bull!

Brawn had none of those advantages. In fact, they didn't even have sponsors in the beginning and middle of the year, which is why they lost so many personnel, including deputy technical direct Jorg Zander. Not to mention they lost the technical R&D support they would have had from Honda.

If you were Brawn, had a decent amount of money early in 2010, but lost most of your personnel in 2009, lost the technology that Honda had to offer and were tasked with rebuilding a team by your new employers Mercedes, what else would you have done? Would it be sensible at all to pump money into the W01, when you knew that you didn't have the capability to develop the car, since you didn't have anyone to develop it? Hell no. You'd focus on getting you engineering department back up to scratch, upgrading whatever facilities you've got and hopefully poaching some talent from other teams, thereby building the basis of a team to hopefully challenge for the championship somewhere down the line.

And this man Brawn, knows what a championship winning team needs. He did that twice before, with Ferrari and Honda. The fact that he managed to attract all these great engineers from different teams, shows that people around the paddock know Mercedes means business, and they are willing to risk their careers to hopefully find success with Brawn's crew. Who are we to judge a man's capabilities based upon 3 bad years when he has decades of success behind him, who has the proven ability to turn around bad teams and has attracted the talents of Aldo Costa, Geoff Willis, Bob Bell and Lewis Hamilton.

To put things in perspective, Brawn 8 WDCs and 9 WCCs in his resume. Aldo Costa has 2 WCCs and one WDC (more if you count his time as Byrne's protege). Bob Bell helped Renault win 2 WDC and 2 WCC. And we all know how good Lewis Hamilton is.

Now, I concede that perhaps replacing Brawn with Lowe may not be the most insensible decision on earth, because Lowe is good. However, I get pissed off when people question Brawn's credibility, based on just 3 bad years.

[mantikos]

English might not be your first language so let me help you:

What language were those articles written in bright spark? Please.......

If I have $1 in the bank and make a $1000 this year that doesn't make me richer than someone with $10,000 in the bank and $800 for the year...hope that clarifies. Cashflow for one year doesn't make Brawn richer than McLaren and Ferrari.

English might not be your first language so I'll clue you in to how Formula 1 works. Teams spend all their budgets every single season because they have to. They don't sit around with large amounts of cash in the bank because competition demands it. 2010 with the biggest injection of cash of everyone and a sizeable budget, plus a healthy performance lead with the double diffuser, should have seen them go from strength to strength the following year. It didn't.

What those articles does do is completely and utterly destroy once and for all the notion that somehow Brawn were this cash strapped team living from hand-to-mouth that was subsequently responsible for the poor performance as Mercedes.

While English might be your first language as you claim - you didn't take an accounting class your entire life.

Other than that - I'll quote a certain rapper: "Don't argue with fools, cause from a distance no one can tell who is who"

[mantikos]

Excuse me, but that's just utter crap. Ferrari and Mclaren have income from other sources, such their roadcar and technology divisions. Red Bull is funded by... Red Bull!

Brawn had none of those advantages. In fact, they didn't even have sponsors in the beginning and middle of the year, which is why they lost so many personnel, including deputy technical direct Jorg Zander. Not to mention they lost the technical R&D support they would have had from Honda.

Thank you - exactly my point!

Moreover, the articles clearly state that Honda paid 90mn+ in one time funding and the total includes Merc's money for buying out ownership...the actual operating budget for the team was significantly smaller...since the problem isn't language or comprehension I'd say munudeges' problem is a lack of understanding of business...as is evident from the "F1 teams spend all their money each year" line. #FACEPALM!

[Richard]

TheBavarianB*****d ... I must respectfully disagree.

I must respectfully disagree.

BB is making a cogent argument that has some validity. For example the DDD was not a Ross Brawn stroke of genius. It most likely started its genesis at Super Aguri and carried to the 3 DDD teams by ex Aguri staff. My personal hunch is that a chap called Barnaby Garood carried the idea from Aguri to Honda in March 09. That was just in time to let them know about the DDD for the car that was called BGP01 in 2010.

What are Brawn's Engineering skills ?. He is a great stratagist, esp when we had open testing, and is generally good on the pit wall, but is designing and developing a car ?

John

Brawn is a Aerodynamicist by trade,

Actually, he's started as a machine operator by trade.

My personal view is that he could best be described as a design leader - a manger and leader of people as opposed to a genius designer.

[Anon123]

Now, I concede that perhaps replacing Brawn with Lowe may not be the most insensible decision on earth, because Lowe is good. However, I get pissed off when people question Brawn's credibility, based on just 3 bad years.

Unfortunately that is always the way in sport, a few months back I found a thread which was started in 2009 and it posed the question "Who is the the most talented Brawn or Newey?" and IIRC Brawn won 9-3 in the poll, I imagine it would be the other way around if the poll was repeated now. All that matters to most people is who is winning now.

[Richard]

What those articles does do is completely and utterly destroy once and for all the notion that somehow Brawn were this cash strapped team living from hand-to-mouth that was subsequently responsible for the poor performance as Mercedes.

Please don't dig up that stinking corpse. Brawn had precious few sponsors at the start of 2009 and lost a lot of staff. Yes the situation was reversed by winning the WCC and WCC.

We have a special thread on this topic. http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... ead#unread

Further posts on this topic will be deleted.

[user001]

brawn had to dismiss nearly half(!) of his staff. keep that in mind.

[ringo]

Actually, he's started as a machine operator by trade.

My personal view is that he could best be described as a design leader - a manger and leader of people as opposed to a genius designer.

Exactly!
We tend to gift team principals or the members of a team who are mostly in the limelight with the achievements of others.
Brawn never claimed to be the brainchild of any innovation, it's funny how people attribute his past teams success to him solely, when in fact he was part of a bigger team. His strength i feel is holding things together, moreso than his own abilities.

I think this strength is of the old school F1. I put him, flavio and Patrick head in the same boat. Some of these guys could get away with certain things back in the day, cause let's be honest things were less advanced back then.
Flavio could say "i wanna see more sparks" as a legitimate metric for car performance. That cannot cut it nowadays. Though he may have possessed certain charisma and management an political skills to keep the team moving forward.
I feel those days are gone. Now it seems most principals and top guys in a team have to come with more substance. They can't come with two empty hands a a papyrus scroll with the "good old days" achievements scratched in. There needs to be more tech savyness, more up to speed, and spritely thinking.
Brawns feats of the past cannot help the team today. His performance over the last 3 years though is what speaks to his effectiveness in modern F1.
I think he deserves a chance to stay in the team and hold it together. At least until another protege comes up to speed, and Brawn hands over the reigns while he takes a more receded approach, as a guiding hand. Patrick head and Frank Williams are the perfect examples.

[dren]

F1 was and still is highly technical. Yes, even back when Brawn was winning with Benneton and Ferrari. He may not be the innovator, but he certainly understands technical concepts and what is going on, far more so than anyone on this site.

[ringo]

True, but it's all relative.
I guess it's how he stacks up against his peers.
I believe he's staying at least another 2 years.

[Cocles]

True, but it's all relative.
I guess it's how he stacks up against his peers.
I believe he's staying at least another 2 years.

That would be my guess too. 2014 would be the transition year, with Lowe taking over for Brawn at the end of the season.

But who knows?