Rosberg expects a level playing field at Mercedes

[marcush.]

Funny thing, is this is a new car for Nico as well, and all of his experience is in a Williams, not a car as arguably quick as the Ferrari's.

Other than rustiness, he has no excuse really. If Nico was an incumbent driver, that would be a fair argument.

Nico is a very talented, and very smart and educated driver. There is no reason to think he might be as good as MS, at this point in his career as MS was at his early stages.

of course you are right.

rosberg has had the advantage of inferior material in the last years and so lots of trying against the odds.He pretty sure knows the game of 2009,but of course has the same adaption to make than any driver to the new bits we have in 2010.
wheras Schumacher had the odd 1 or 2 tests two years back and nothing of relevance thereafter.But of course that is not to excuse anything ,he simply is rusty and was not a match for Rosberg yet.

Looking at Vettel/Webber , Hamilton /Button or Alonso /Massa he fared quite well in terms of matching his teammate ,clearly Webber was doing himself no favour with
his qualy mistake.. From this you clearly see just how important a spoton Qauly lap really is.

[RacingManiac]

Funny thing, is this is a new car for Nico as well, and all of his experience is in a Williams, not a car as arguably quick as the Ferrari's.

Other than rustiness, he has no excuse really. If Nico was an incumbent driver, that would be a fair argument.

Nico is a very talented, and very smart and educated driver. There is no reason to think he might be as good as MS, at this point in his career as MS was at his early stages.

I haven't paid much attention to how Rosberg used to like his car. It could be he just fit the handling tendency better. We do know that Button and Schumacher likes different style car.....which regardless adds to Schumacher's problem to start....

[Giblet]

Barichello and Button like different style setups, remember that it has been widely discussed and for the most part understood by those who know, that designers/teams aim for a balanced car that give confidence, that they can later skew to one style or another via setup, but they both made the BGP01 work to their advantage at different times of the year.

I don't want to get into a driver skill peeing contest thing here, but MS might have his hands full now. He never had a teammate that was a potential equal to his, until now.

As far as the level playing field goes, as that is supposed to be the topic of conversation in this thread, it looks like the field is level, and Rosberg is allowed to play with his toy as much as Schumi is. Ross would love Schumi to win more of course, but not at the expense of the team not winning at all, or spoiling a potential multiple title winner like Rosberg. As good as MS is, he has a limited shelf life now.

I think that if MS was to lose to Rosberg, and come back next year more determined and stronger, and then win, would make a better story than him walking away with the title this year.

[WhiteBlue]

As far as the level playing field goes, as that is supposed to be the topic of conversation in this thread, it looks like the field is level, and Rosberg is allowed to play with his toy as much as Schumi is. Ross would love Schumi to win more of course, but not at the expense of the team not winning at all, or spoiling a potential multiple title winner like Rosberg. As good as MS is, he has a limited shelf life now.

1. Agree!

2.

MS had the fastest race lap of the two and once he started getting into his stride had the .4 gap per lap down to more like .1/.2

Yes Schumi had the faster race pace and he was way more consistent in testing.

3. Unfortunately we are still plagued by a massive overtaking problem which is caused by way too much downforce. The cars were supposed to have 1,25 tons for the present wing configuration and slick tyre equipment. They have probably now up to 2,5 tons or more. The vast majority of that downforce is at the rear because it is generated by the rear wing and the diffusor. On top they took away a big part of the contact patch of the front tyres. All of this does not suit Michael's driving style. He likes a very positive over steering front end and tail happy car for optimum performance. The downforce and contact patch distribution does not suit him at all. I'm not sure that Brawn will be able to sort the car to his liking this year. It may take until next year with the disappearance of the DDDs and reduction of the primary diffusor to 125 mm that he will get car that suits him.

4. You have to consider that Michael was never the best qualifier among the multiple champs. Compared with Senna he won a lot more races on race pace than on by qualifying and leading from the front. According to medical research he may also be 0,3-0,4 s slower than he was at his best time.

Considering all those circumstances I would not be surprised if qualifying and point scoring was pretty equal this year or even slightly better for Nico. I don't see this as a negative. Nico should have a chance to show his talent. He is certainly doing a good job so far.

[PlatinumZealot]

Technically no one has driven on this Bahrain track, of course the old track, Schumacher has won on before.

Part of the problem probably might just have to do with the fact that even though this is a new car, it is still a development from BGP001, a car that was developed from years of input from Button(when it was a Honda before that). Who prefers this type of handling and all the previous years' data and input and experience was based on that foundation....I am sure that'll be difficult to shake off on your first car for the team.....I think in terms of basic design of the vehicle, Schumacher's input won't really be fully integrated until 2011's car....

To me it is simple. Rosberg can drive that car better than Schumacher. No excuses. A car is a car and driver is supposed to drive it.

[DaveKillens]

Although Michael Schumacher is definitely a great driver, he needs the car to suit him to be 100% effective. When he went to Ferrari in 1996, it took the team a few years to design and deliver to Michael a car that suited him perfectly. Then of course, we all know he dominated 2000 to 2004.

So, yes, Michael Schumacher is not adaptable to different car setups, he works best when things are set up to suit his style and preferences. Obviously, he isn't totally comfortable with this new Mercedes, and this raises deep issues.

Michael will be with Mercedes for at least three years, and the team has to ponder in whether they should go down the path of designing a car that suits Michael, to the possible detriment of the second driver. Because when he leaves, the team don't want to inherit a car design that doesn't have the potential to be effective in the future.

It's going to be interesting to sit on the sidelines and watch the Mercedes car evolve, and to see if it is designed expressely for Michael, or is more generic in how other drivers can handle the car.

Right now, I believe Mercedes and Brawn are looking short-term, and would love to capture a title in 2010, or 2011. But Rosberg represents the future for the F1 Mercedes team, and they do have to plan beyond 2012.

[kilcoo316]

Although Michael Schumacher is definitely a great driver, he needs the car to suit him to be 100% effective. When he went to Ferrari in 1996, it took the team a few years to design and deliver to Michael a car that suited him perfectly. Then of course, we all know he dominated 2000 to 2004.

So, yes, Michael Schumacher is not adaptable to different car setups, he works best when things are set up to suit his style and preferences. Obviously, he isn't totally comfortable with this new Mercedes, and this raises deep issues.

Are you taking the piss?


Or have you forgotten the regular miracles that occurred in the no.1 Ferrari in the late 90s?

[ringo]

Flipping the script, if Shumacher was consistently half a second faster than Rosberg i can bet no one would be finding excuses for Nico.Let's seriously think about that for a moment.

We have to give Rosberg some credit here. If Shumacher had Button for a team mate, we would have never looked for excuses such as car design etc. it would be accepted that Shumi can adapt to anything. With saying that, Button was out qualified and held off by Shumacher in a faster MP4, so it is clear Shumi still has some skills left in him. So much so he is better than the current WDC already

[marcush.]

can we conclude that rosberg and schumacher are on a level playing field with what they get from their team?
It is in no way as everything was tailored around Schumacher as was the saga when he was at Benetton and Ferrari.

I also remember on Gerhard Berger who went to Mclaren to join Senna...he beat him on that first weekend in Qualyfying but it was to be the only time in their years together ,wasn´t it? Lets see how Schumacher is dealing with a teammate challenging his position in the team.

[Rob W]

can we conclude that rosberg and schumacher are on a level playing field with what they get from their team?
It is in no way as everything was tailored around Schumacher as was the saga when he was at Benetton and Ferrari.

No. Despite what people here or the team say in public.

It's simple: there is more than double the kudos and potential sponsorship value in having Michael win. Therefore, someone as smart as Brawn will know to put that little more effort into Michael's side of the garage when it matters. He'd be doing a disservice to the team if he didn't. I'm not suggesting they'll hamstring Rosberg but they definitely wont be giving him the first option on upgrades, preference in tight situation pit-stops (unless it's too obvious), tire choices when it's a dicey call etc.

Wait until there have been 5 or so races.

[PlatinumZealot]

Hmm.. now that you said it.. very interesting to see who gets the upgrades first!

Right now Rosberg is the faster driver and the car fits him more, so he should get them first.

[ArchAngel]

I guess the question of who gets the updates first will only matter if Merc cannot immediately give it to both drivers at the same time. It could also depend on the nature of the updates: if it is intended more to correct the inherent imbalance & understeer-iness of the car, then Michael could reasonably be given first crack at it, since Nico might not even want to change the very nature of the W01 that makes it suited to his driving style.

[nipo]

Although Michael Schumacher is definitely a great driver, he needs the car to suit him to be 100% effective. When he went to Ferrari in 1996, it took the team a few years to design and deliver to Michael a car that suited him perfectly. Then of course, we all know he dominated 2000 to 2004.

So, yes, Michael Schumacher is not adaptable to different car setups, he works best when things are set up to suit his style and preferences. Obviously, he isn't totally comfortable with this new Mercedes, and this raises deep issues.

Really? I think the other way round.

At the time Schumi joined Ferrari, the team has lost their glory and has been left sitting without a champion for a long time (too long). Although they weren't exactly backmarkers and did manage to challenge for some wins, the team needed rebuilding to even start thinking about going consistently back to the very top. Schumi was one of the catalysts for that, I believe, but the process took time and the car to begin with was not championship-winning material. I don't think that in 1996 it was Michael's ability to adapt that he missed the title - it was simply that the car at that time was too slow for anyone to do that.

On the contrary, Brawn expressed, when asked about Button's abilities, that Schumi has the natural ability to "mask" a car's inadequacies, making it sometimes harder to develop the car (than the former, who suits a narrower spectrum of driving style). I think his comment carries a lot of weight and shows us that Schumi is in fact very adaptive.

As for this first race, Schumi expressed it himself very well - he feels "rusty". Now, how long it will take him to remove that rust (if it ever will go off, that is) is everybody's guess. One thing is for sure - he's 41 and 3 yrs away from the sport, and he scored 6th at his comeback race on a piece of machinery that's clearly not at the top. I would say that it is a reasonably good performance.

I don't want to judge whether the playing field is level given only this one race. Yes, on the surface it may seem that Nico coming out one place better than Schumi might seem that His Dynasty is finally over, but I'd prefer to wait a few races and observe upgrades / pit advantages as some here have pointed out, before making any judgement. Who knows, maybe Schumi already received a lot of advantage to come home one place behind his teammate!!! LOL~

[mx_tifoso]

Rosberg 50 points. Schumacher 10 points.

I'd say Rosberg has a level playing field.

[WhiteBlue]

Nico has said very clear that they have a similar driving style and that everything that Schumacher got in terms of improvements benefits him as well. Good example is the blown wing. Schumacher tested it and approved it. Nico took it on board for qualifying and the race and profited by it. No sign really of a disadvantage. At the moment Nico is simply quicker and the team is delighted about that. If there is any pressure it is clearly on Michael to fulfill the expectations.

My impression is that Schumacher will not close the gap until Brawn switches resources to the 2011 design in summer. There may even be the risk for Schumacher that the team tries Nick and he has to step back to let the team maximize points for the 2010 WCC. It would be a bitter experience.