Nick Fry

[Pup]

That story was written by Pitpass' resident moron, Chris Sylit, who had no doubt misread yet another annual report.

[WhiteBlue]

That story was written by Pitpass' resident moron, Chris Sylit, who had no doubt misread yet another annual report.

His name is actually Sylt. I've seen different quality of publishing by him. He was doing some decent work when he was compiling figures from across the industry to give an idea of the revenue streams in F1.

Lately he tried to bash Mercedes with some pieces that seemed more driven by an agenda than by facts. Particularly the issue of Merc pulling out of McLaren and investing in Brawn is missing some objectivity.

There is undoubtedly a lot of synergy in running the Brackley and Brixton shops with a common overhead. That was an issue which he conveniently overlooks. He also seems to be completely clueless about the workings of mergers and aquisitions. Merc's switch to Brawn is truly a strategic decision which was triggered by Ron seriously kicking off MP4-12C three years ago.

The damage for both Merc and McLaren by getting their marketing wrong would by far exceed any one off cost for the separation of the partnership. The value of winning in racing is another issue that Sylt doesn't seem to understand. Racing teams are not run for profit but for winning points, races and championships. The exception to that rule is Red Bull. They have the primary goal of pushing the product. But that is also best done by winning.

[Hangaku]

The exception to that rule is Red Bull. They have the primary goal of pushing the product. But that is also best done by winning.

I see no difference, apart from the object in question - Mercedes and Red Bull are both racing to sell more of their products, whether it be energy drinks or road cars

[WhiteBlue]

The exception to that rule is Red Bull. They have the primary goal of pushing the product. But that is also best done by winning.

I see no difference, apart from the object in question - Mercedes and Red Bull are both racing to sell more of their products, whether it be energy drinks or road cars

Yes, that is the same for all teams pushing one product like Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and so on. Stand alone racing teams like Sauber, Willliams and McLaren lately are different. Their mentality also changes when they start to exist only for the product. Sauber and McLaren will be interesting to watch in that respect in the coming years.

[Richard]

Yes, that is the same for all teams pushing one product like Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and so on. Stand alone racing teams like Sauber, Willliams and McLaren lately are different. Their mentality also changes when they start to exist only for the product. Sauber and McLaren will be interesting to watch in that respect in the coming years.

This is getting way off topic but ...

I'd watch Williams, they are the only team to establish a mainstream commercial product that arose directly from their race technology, ie flybrid technology. The irony is that their flybrid never got to the track!

Williams have had to stand no their own feet for a while once their championship heyday passed. that means they are a few years ahead of McLaren and Sauber who were bankrolled by Merc and BMW.

A possible exception is the McLaren built ECU, but that is contained within racing, they haven't taken it to the big wide world.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

White blue

Very intelligent piece on chris sylt. I, as an unashamed Mercedes fan had to read many posts on crash.net by "experts"(quotes for a very good reason) quoting this guy as a source.
His piece on Mercedes-Benz as a company existing soley as a basis for PR to shift below average products is shameful at best. He uses figures for his own ends and doesnt report the whole story. Rather I prefer the constructive criticisms of Journos like Chris Harris, who rightly berated Mercedes for the woeful products of the late 90s and early 00's. But never lost sight of the fact that Mercedes is a great marque and worthy of its heritage

[andrew]

White blue

Very intelligent piece on chris sylt. I, as an unashamed Mercedes fan had to read many posts on crash.net by "experts"(quotes for a very good reason) quoting this guy as a source.
His piece on Mercedes-Benz as a company existing soley as a basis for PR to shift below average products is shameful at best. He uses figures for his own ends and doesnt report the whole story. Rather I prefer the constructive criticisms of Journos like Chris Harris, who rightly berated Mercedes for the woeful products of the late 90s and early 00's. But never lost sight of the fact that Mercedes is a great marque and worthy of its heritage

Are you the same guy that took information on Wikipedia as gospel and claimed that Mercedes did not do PR?

If so, you are so blinkered it is not real. Mercedes is not a great marque. It's cars are vastly overpriced and are average at best when compared to other marques like Audi, Ford or Mazda. I am also lead to believe that Merc reliability is pretty poor at times.

If you are not this guy, my bad, I apologise.

[WhiteBlue]

Remaining for a moment with the off topic of Chris Sylt I remember another pretty bad comparison from him which suggests expertise but can be called moronic as Pup said. He was writing about the manufacturer pull out and was comparing what manufacturers were spending on their teams. He then compared that to the price of a car and figured out how many cars they had to sell to generate the revenue equal to what they were spending on the team. This is a completely meaningless figure in my view.

Corporations produce much better figures to compare their team expenses with and find out how affordable it is. Even an inaccurately comparable figure like gross profit would be better suited than the numbers of cars sold. If you want to make a really meaningful comparison it should be based on annual cash flow or increase of market value. You would then find that it was very affordable for Toyota while things went well and Ferrari was probably coming very close to this considering that they got most of their budget from FOM, merchandizing and sponsorship. Of course it all turned wrong for Toyota Honda and the like when cash flow and disposable income went negative. The value of winning comes into play because it generates revenue from FOM and even more important from sponsors. Williams won their last championship fifteen years ago and they still have a lot of sponsor pull from their history of winning. Chris Sylt never compares these important aspects when he criticizes teams for their economic moves.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

White blue

Again, I agree. What i dont understand is this impulsion by chris sylt to be controversial. Nor why pitpass bother. As it is Pitpass' reputation that suffers.
His bit on Mercedes engine spend in 2009 shows he has an agenda. The money wasnt spent on engines, but on KERS. Somthing he clearly fails to mention.

Andrew, Mercedes of course use PR to sell cars. So do every other car maker.
Is it right to singled out on an F1 website as THE ONLY marque to do so?
No it is not.
It is the same as when you called me a "descendant of white land grabbers"
Yes you are entitled to that vile opinion knowing full well Im a white south african. But you are not the only person with a vile opinion.
I question why you feel the need to follow me on to a respected site as this to be told as much.

[andrew]

You appear to have me confussed with someone else. I have seen some of your comments on crash.net but have never posted. I was going to but decided against it. Some of the content is very outlandish, but there does seem to be a lot of childishness (names like "fish fingers", "captain birdseye" etc etc). That site is really a waste of time.

As for South Africa, no worry of mine. Mandela is a great man but as for the history, what's done is done and cannot be undone. No point dwelling on it and I would question its relevance in a motorsport forum.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Andrew, you lie really badly mate.
You question me here, and 1 hour ago on crashnet you told 107SS i was on this site.
Tell him my "stones" have been banned from crashnet.

[andrew]

Bans only last for about 24 hours. If you e-mail crash and ask for the ban to be lifted it will be unless you have done something really really really really bad. Try logging on and see if it works.

[Richard]

Andrew & Johnson - The accusations you are throwing at each other do not relate to posts on here. What happens in crash.net should be left in crash.net?