Mercedes GP MGP W01

[marcush.]

As far as I know its the Silverstone car again becasue the EBD got wavy under heat. Rosberg and Schumacher obviously use different setups now but just to learn how the car performs. Sounds like at least Schumacher is not keen to get best positions but rather test the car.

+1 exactly my thoughts.I would do it that ways.learn as much as you can and hope to find the holy gail for 2011...

[donskar]

. . . The problem is the car is slow at every single track it has raced in. It looks like that Mercedes made a mistake when they bought Brawn GP and sticking with McLaren would produce much better results. Every update they brought to their car hasn't worked as it seems. Even SWB car was producing the same results as LWB car is doing and it is sometimes worse with this long wheelbase!!! It seems to me that this car was built somewhere else and now is given to this team and they have no idea about its characteristics!!! . . .

Or could it be that last year they inherited such a good car from Honda that it made the team seem much better than they really are? Brawn is excellent, but how good is the remainder of the team? On the flip side is it a good team hampered by Mercedes?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Or could it be that last year they inherited such a good car from Honda that it made the team seem much better than they really are? Brawn is excellent, but how good is the remainder of the team? On the flip side is it a good team hampered by Mercedes?

[-X

No Mercedes and I promise you Brawn would be teetering on the brink of existance.
Furthermore, that Benz pony in the back didnt harm them much last year did it?
And as alot of people know the W01 is 9/10ths Brawn....

[Morteza]

. . . The problem is the car is slow at every single track it has raced in. It looks like that Mercedes made a mistake when they bought Brawn GP and sticking with McLaren would produce much better results. Every update they brought to their car hasn't worked as it seems. Even SWB car was producing the same results as LWB car is doing and it is sometimes worse with this long wheelbase!!! It seems to me that this car was built somewhere else and now is given to this team and they have no idea about its characteristics!!! . . .

Or could it be that last year they inherited such a good car from Honda that it made the team seem much better than they really are? Brawn is excellent, but how good is the remainder of the team? On the flip side is it a good team hampered by Mercedes?

Believe it or not, I really have no idea about the staff. As you said Brawn is excellent. Their last year's car was really something because they started to design it in 2008 season when they announced that 2008 was over for them. At that time it was the full Honda team with all their staff, then Honda pulled out of F1 and the car was in the hands of what was left of the team. Losing nearly half of your staff many of which might have had a really big share in designing the car damages the team. Maybe it is because of this loss that the car is inferior.

[segedunum]

Or could it be that last year they inherited such a good car from Honda that it made the team seem much better than they really are?

The Brawn turned out to be a killer car last year for two reasons - Ross Brawn had a lot of time to help them along in finding the double diffuser loophole given how early they started for 2009, and most importantly they came up with a killer front wing that made the car brilliantly balanced.

Take away that signature wing and Ross Brawn is Team Principal and can't take a whole lot of technical responsibility you have pretty much the same group of people that produced the pile of dog turd Jenson Button had to drive in 2008. If Michael Schumacher wants to win then I think he and Ross Brawn will probably need to think about the personnel there otherwise nothing is likely to happen.

[lotus7]

Take away that signature wing and Ross Brawn is Team Principal and can't take a whole lot of technical responsibility you have pretty much the same group of people that produced the pile of dog turd Jenson Button had to drive in 2008. If Michael Schumacher wants to win then I think he and Ross Brawn will probably need to think about the personnel there otherwise nothing is likely to happen.

And what is Nick Fry's job ? I thought he was there so that Ross can concentrate on finding loopholes

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Nick Fry has commercial responsibilities.

I dont think Fry has contributed to anything on the car in his time with BAR/Honda/Brawn/Mercedes.

[segedunum]

+1 exactly my thoughts.I would do it that ways.learn as much as you can and hope to find the holy gail for 2011...

I think that's all he and Mercedes can do. Hope to find the lucky thing that moves them forwards. Otherwise, given the competition, this could drag on excruciatingly for years.

[segedunum]

And what is Nick Fry's job ? I thought he was there so that Ross can concentrate on finding loopholes

Nick Fry is not Team Principal. Ross Brawn made it clear when he left Ferrari that was the job he wanted and it entails a hell of a lot of responsibilities that rules out him being heavily involved technically with the car. He might lurk around in the background and try and provide some technical direction and guidance for the car but that's as much as he can do. He's not hands-on like in his Ferrari days and to his credit that's not how he wants to manage the team.

[Catalyst]

I think that Ross Brawn will be directing his team to design a car that can be adapted more easily to in-season development and modifications. Not necessarily focusing on optimizing for particular parameters or tire models.

The problem this year is that Brawn relied too much on the tire models which turned out to be wrong. Faced with a new tire manufacturer, I believe designing an adaptable car is even more important.

This year Mercedes have demonstrated an instance of this philosophy when they adopted the blade roll structure, which allowed them to change the airbox layout without being subjected to the homologation rules.

Under the current regulations, F1 car design seems very similar to software engineering where there is a famous principle: a piece of software should be closed for modification but open to extension. The current regulations demand a car that can be "extended" easily without the chassis being modified.

[marcush.]

As i understand ,Brawn was famous for rules interpretation and inspired race /pitwall strategy,at the company base he excelled at organising things/proceedures and looking into the detail design.
the great guy to do the concept and aero of the cars at Benetton and ferrari was rory Byrne..who is not in business for quite a while now..

Obviously Mercedes has come up with some new areas of development for 2010 but unfortunatelly nothing was as significant as an f-duct,blown difusser or bendiwing
so my view is they operate with a smaller team than RB,Macs and the reds AND have
put their emphasis in car development on areas not making a big differencee in car performance and now rush in updates that are simply not ready so they have to step back half the steps they go forward...I´d stop for now and concentrate on perfecting tire behaviour analysis and setup adaption for changing conditions.It seems adding car variables is just too much for them at this time.

[ggajic]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85823

One of explanations but it doesn`t explain how Red Bull managed to solve this problem...

[Boost]

Lewis has a very similar point the nose into the corner and let the rear slide around style to Schumi and yet he isn't suffering from tyre issues.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Lewis has a very similar point the nose into the corner and let the rear slide around style to Schumi and yet he isn't suffering from tyre issues.

Are you comparing the Mclaren front end to Mercedes?

[siskue2005]

Lewis has a very similar point the nose into the corner and let the rear slide around style to Schumi and yet he isn't suffering from tyre issues.

Err.. Lewis drives for Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes F1 Team
Schumy drives for Petronas Mercedes GP F1 team