Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[marcush.]

that first test has no influence really today.Missing that test resulted in being a bit on their toes with car setup methinks.
I remember Wo3 starting to show signs of being a tad fragile on day 3 already..
I think they just went a bit over the top with taking things to the extreme and pay a price.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@dragonfly

The reason I say that is not only to do with Bernie's quite crass negotiating techniques. Other than Ferrari, Mercedes have been staunchly supportive of F1 the last 20 years. Yet they appear frozen out of a deal.
But also because a quick glance through this thread, and if Mercedes win, it's because they're a regurgitated Honda team, and when they lose it's because their staff are incompetent.
They cannot win. Better off out if this is the attitude.

People have yet to see what the addition of an extra engineer will achieve, yet castigate the teams actions.

As for the quite ridiculous comparison between Le Mans ENDURANCE racing and F1, lets see Audi build a winning F1 car before we make any judgements.

Anyway, I'm off for a little break from this site. No doubt when I return there will be even more shite to sift through.

[Cocles]

The question no one is asking (and should be) is whether this new engineer came from within or outside Mercedes AMG. Either way, I remember at least someone on here whining that if this were Ferrari, there'd be someone sitting down and WATCHING the mechanics work on the car. Whether it be to stifle incompetence or all out sabotage, the fact of the matter is that this new engineer is obviously Brawn and Bell's focused eyes and ears on Schumacher's car. Good stuff.

And JET, I agree with your last post completely.

[marcush.]

c´mon guys .
You seem to have blind faith in people and organisations who have failed to solve the obvious issues since more than 2 weeks ...errm no two years and a bit more....
We see today the result of their reorganisation and recruiting campaign ...spending additional millions of € to get the job done.
Why be kind or mellow? Don´t expect Brawn and Haug receiving any kind words when reporting to the board.In fact it can be quite wearing in these meetings as usually those guys quickly come down to personal accusations .Just look at Mr.Haugs well being-he seems to be ill all the time..there are reasons for it,believe me ..and these have to do with the pressure coming from top down more than from the challenge of transforming the team to a championship contender..

[NewtonMeter]

c´mon guys .
You seem to have blind faith in people and organisations who have failed to solve the obvious issues since more than 2 weeks ...errm no two years and a bit more....
.

I don't think they have blind faith. Blind faith would be to believe they'll sort it out, no matter what. If you read their posts carefully, I think they're saying "lets wait and see first" before we whip them. JET for instance, will cry blood (I'm sure) these failures still continue. But until we actually let the situation play itself out, we won't know.

I kind of get it. The team realised and has made no attempt to hide that it's reliability sucked with MS's car. What are they supposed to do? They try and fix things, and some still crucify them for it. Yes, some people actually implicitly criticize Merc for trying to fix things.

So instead of accusing some of having blind faith, which is: "belief without true understanding, perception, or discrimination" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blind+faith). I think some are suffering from blind doubt which would be : doubt without true understanding, perception, or discrimination.

[marcush.]

Don´t get me wrong here ...I have put it already in context.
Brawn HAS restructured already.It took them over two years already.
If they happen to need further last minute reconsiderations to improve apppalling reliability ,it´s just justified ,not a slashing of the outfit.
Could you come up towards your boss and explain year after year why things do not pan out as promised and ask for even more money and workforce and what have you to achieve what you had originally sold as a cost saving coup?
The question here is how long will they look on and nod saying -yes true ,good point ,how could they know,etc etc...You are hiring the best and most expensive people and still need to fall in each and every trap ? no you don´t .That is a very simple and valid point.
It has nothing to do with slashing or being unfair. The message was:we are selling a true championship contender to mercedes at a bargain price...Reality was it was anything but a competitive team when Daimler got hold of it .And it is in the third year of running still falling short of expectations ..as admitted and confirmed by brawn.
They have to expect some flak ..life is like that.Deliver or get shot down

[Cocles]

Don´t get me wrong here ...I have put it already in context.

You claim to speak in context, claiming the team has huge reliability issues, while at the same time ignoring that one of their cars has completed every single lap this season.

Blind doubt indeed.

And Newton, nice post.

[marcush.]

sorry ,that´s irrelevant .
It´s two cars and one Team .Even if one car is making the distance on every occasion ...still the other car which is claimed to be exactly the same has appalling reliability.
Realistically ,Rosberg has had also issues but he was lucky it did happen at less important punishing times .(Still it cost him valuable track time ).
So ,no time to pat your shoulders and claim you are not so bad after all ...It´s the other way around you have to be worried and rightly so.
And ...furthermore ..the issues are spreading across all aspects of the car ..wheelretention,fuel system,hydraulics,gearbox ,clutch....so it´s not like they have an area to concentrate on but have to look just everywhere and fear about what´s next on the agenda.

[mep]

As for the quite ridiculous comparison between Le Mans ENDURANCE racing and F1, lets see Audi build a winning F1 car before we make any judgements.

Comparing LeMans with F1 is not at all ridiculous. I can even compare F1 with VW's Rally Dakar and WRC participation because that is what the board of the automotive companies do. The only reason why they do all that stuff is because they want to sell cars. They want to generate a brand image. Mercedes still lives from the image they generated with the silver arrows ages ago. Now currently their main competitor, which is Audi and not Ferrari or McLaren and for sure not RedBull, does much better in that. Audi clearly showed that their cars are absolutely reliable and outperforms all the other cars. Also their preparation to the race shows remarkable organisation down to the smallest detail and is therefore highly professional. Also, I said they show clean motorsport which means they don't come in contact with questionable actions or half legal devices on their car or even end up on court which Mercedes did in the spy gate.

Mercedes does reach a bigger audience with F1 but partly fails on these criteria mentioned above. The fact that the car is slow is not even the worst thing. Really harmful is the fact that it constantly breaks down. Now if also some technical issue with one of their road cars comes up they will face a real threat for their brand image. What that means can be seen with Opel.

The other issue which naturally occurs in F1 is the constant ride on the edge of legality. One of the worst things that can happen to Mercedes is that they are accused of cheating. They have to be more conservative on the car design than for example RedBull. And they still drive around a car which gets questioned by other teams. Mercedes was already involved in the spy gate with McLaren. Stories like that is not what Stuttgart wants to see.

The last thing is their lack of professional occurrence. Running out of fuel, not being able to calculate the remaining time left in qualy, poor pit strategy...
All that adds up to a overall poor picture of them. This has to be changed right now! There is no time left for that team.

Also LeMans cars are technically not so far of a F1 car. They are a big heavier due to the regulations but the engineering principles stay exactly the same. In some regards can a LeMan car be even ahead of F1. Engine technology for example. Also as I already mentioned earlier you get the performance of such a car from its aerodynamic shape but it the mechanical parts that fail. Don't make such a big hype about F1, it is still just a car and not a spaceship from a different planet.

[xpensive]

...
As for the quite ridiculous comparison between Le Mans ENDURANCE racing and F1, lets see Audi build a winning F1 car before we make any judgements.
...

Audi can always try it the Mercedes way, simply buy this year's winning team and put a four-ring sticker on it?

[Cocles]

When describe a team as fundamentally problematic to its core, its kind of big deal to leave out that one of their cars has finished every lap so far this season. You'd have to be a pretty hardcore pessimist to think otherwise.

The mods desperately need to create a pair of threads titled "Schumacher got jipped by going to Mercedes-Benz!" and "When I think of Mercedes-Benz, the glass is ALWAYS half-empty!" so some of you can have a home all your own.

I'm also out of here for awhile. Some of you are the antithesis of fan-boys, which is just as bad.

[Raptor22]

Just one thing to take note of:
Audi just finished the 24hour race of LeMans with all 4 Audis, without one single of these cars braking down. These are 24 hours, Mercedes can not even make more than 12 laps without the gearbox braking down. That shows how bad Mercedes actually is. There is no excuse for all these problems it is simply just embarrassing. We can not close our eyes to this reality no matter how much we are fan of the team.

Audi shows clean motorsport and real professionalism. When I have to buy a new car it will be an Audi and not a Mercedes and this is due to their unprofessional behaviour they show to the world.

+10

Not only that but they won with a new drive train concept that has had much less running than the Mercedes W03 had before the start of the season. Even if some of the Audi driver conspired to trip over anything they could they still finished 1.2.3.5 with the number 1 car having one incident outside its control.
Audi did not have a glitch in pit stops and fixed their number 3 car so effectively it was one of the fastest 3 cars while the drivers kept it on the road.
Good engineers, good mechanics, all working together to form a great team to back up their drivers. Even McNish was not in the #2 car it would probably have won.
Audi have owned Le Mans and LMP1 racing since 2000 (Even when it raced in posh clothing (bentley))
Mercedes have never achieved anything similar in F1. Their best hope was McLaren and Ron gave them the best chance of success and apparently still does.

Mercedes adding a another overseeir is pretty indicative that they know they have sabotage on their hands. Strange that the beneficiary of Schumachers bad luck should be adding comments like "its not the standard we aim for..." and Ross saying he does believe in faith. Faith is not something to believe in, You either have faith or you don't and peeling this lemon tells me he does not have faith in Schumacher's crew.
The lot should be fired. That sends clear message to the replacement crew - shape up or ship out

[Raptor22]

As for the quite ridiculous comparison between Le Mans ENDURANCE racing and F1, lets see Audi build a winning F1 car before we make any judgements.

Comparing LeMans with F1 is not at all ridiculous. I can even compare F1 with VW's Rally Dakar and WRC participation because that is what the board of the automotive companies do. The only reason why they do all that stuff is because they want to sell cars. They want to generate a brand image. Mercedes still lives from the image they generated with the silver arrows ages ago. Now currently their main competitor, which is Audi and not Ferrari or McLaren and for sure not RedBull, does much better in that. Audi clearly showed that their cars are absolutely reliable and outperforms all the other cars. Also their preparation to the race shows remarkable organisation down to the smallest detail and is therefore highly professional. Also, I said they show clean motorsport which means they don't come in contact with questionable actions or half legal devices on their car or even end up on court which Mercedes did in the spy gate.

Mercedes does reach a bigger audience with F1 but partly fails on these criteria mentioned above. The fact that the car is slow is not even the worst thing. Really harmful is the fact that it constantly breaks down. Now if also some technical issue with one of their road cars comes up they will face a real threat for their brand image. What that means can be seen with Opel.

The other issue which naturally occurs in F1 is the constant ride on the edge of legality. One of the worst things that can happen to Mercedes is that they are accused of cheating. They have to be more conservative on the car design than for example RedBull. And they still drive around a car which gets questioned by other teams. Mercedes was already involved in the spy gate with McLaren. Stories like that is not what Stuttgart wants to see.

The last thing is their lack of professional occurrence. Running out of fuel, not being able to calculate the remaining time left in qualy, poor pit strategy...
All that adds up to a overall poor picture of them. This has to be changed right now! There is no time left for that team.

Also LeMans cars are technically not so far of a F1 car. They are a big heavier due to the regulations but the engineering principles stay exactly the same. In some regards can a LeMan car be even ahead of F1. Engine technology for example. Also as I already mentioned earlier you get the performance of such a car from its aerodynamic shape but it the mechanical parts that fail. Don't make such a big hype about F1, it is still just a car and not a spaceship from a different planet.

Exactly, and Audi are spending 150million euro per annum to achieve this success whiel Mercedes spends nearly 300Million EURO and look like incompetent clowns ( cast your mind back to three overweight bafooons trying to break a DRS flap off a rear wing to "fix" a problem...
Far worse is that Audi acheive this success inhouse through Audi Sport and Joest Racing as the team running the car. Its an Audi engine in there, modified for racing but it comes off a production line. Its an Audi Gearbox, semi auto designed in house, mated to a chassis built in an Audi factory.
Mercedes had to buy a championship winning team and acheive one win in three years. Audi has dominated for 13 seasons.

If VAG enters F1 will they use the Audi brand or Porsche? I tell you they will never enter F1 because its expensive with very little technical challenge. They cannot develop an engine under the current rules while Mercedes bought ilmor and their technology.
Conclusion. Mercedes is not a technically competent company and needs to acquire technology since it cannot be developed inhouse. They are also incapable of producing reliability or consistency (erratic championship campaigns over the last 20 yrs prove this)
What difference will one more engineer observing the adherence to standards makes when the whole organisation has proven that inconsistency is its only consistency...

[gato azul]

Far worse is that Audi acheive this success inhouse through Audi Sport and Joest Racing as the team running the car. Its an Audi engine in there, modified for racing but it comes off a production line. Its an Audi Gearbox, semi auto designed in house, mated to a chassis built in an Audi factory.

sorry to burst your bubble, but that is just plain wrong.

BTW - Audis 2004-2011 DTM Engine is based on a Mugen engine, and was prepared my NBE from 2001-2004.
Nothing wrong with a bit of bashing, but at least have the decency to get your facts right, it would help your credibility
quite a bit.

[yener]

I agree with Marcush

Maybe there are people who want Michael to fail or the Brand Mercedes in F1 is delivering unreliable car parts.

Nico's car is fine! So i take the first option.

Michael had trouble with his clutch today but they couldnt find anything abnormal so he went back on track and was 4th fastest>


Sunday 24 June 2012, Valencia GP lap 20-35 : "Michael save your engine m8, we are not going to make it to the pits"

5 min After the Race, Ross Brawn: "It's usual to leave Valencia as soon as possible to avoid the traffic and Michael order a dinner table at the local Restaurant at 4PM.