Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[bhall]

Technical forum, team thread. As such, I think it's entirely valid to question whether or not Mercedes has too many cooks in the kitchen, as xpensive's scenario implies.

There's a reason why dictators get things done quickly while democracies lag behind.

[xpensive]

...
There's a reason why dictators get things done quickly while democracies lag behind.

Engineering has never had anything to do with democracy, it's either right or wrong, why I find the sheer idea of three,
current as well as former, technical directors discussing on how to design a wheel-nut so outright preposterous.

But I'm afraid that is what's going on with this team.

[marcush.]

I´m very much used to these many cooks scenarios and no single dictator but commitee development.It´s a burden really,and you very much get confused and decisions take looooong time and are overturned and rarely the best solution gets the nod but a compromise ..which is the usually not the best of both worlds but the little bit all parties have in common...
I´´m a big supporter of top down hierarchies , but the individuals in the chain carry big responsibilities and work themselves as drivers of their theme ..so not every detail gets signed off in advance by the master ,but the footworkers actually know what to do and do their job...without endless useless discussions and agreements.
the big companies work like the many cooks scenario and all I can say it does not lead itself to the best endproduct .It leads to cost driving and reluctance of all involved to drive decisions -commit to something and live with the results good or bad.

[munudeges]

They can have as many civil conversations as they like but being successful in this kind of field depends on a clear and credible chain of command. Geoff Willis completely undermines Bob Bell's position even with the greatest will in the world because he's responsible for the most important part of the car, the aerodynamics, and he's had Bell's job before in the same team.

[xpensive]

Again, there's something wrong with the appointments here. For all of my humble management xperience, having held similar positions as Bob Bell, although within businesses far less technically demanding of course, I would never had accepted that someone reporting to me would share such a similar title as my own, Technology director, Engineering director?

It just generates confusion among the confreres around yourself.

[marcush.]

on a work level having many bosses around you can be very disturbing ...you got your own head of department but then arrives the master of engineering and tells you to do things like this and five minutes later the head of technology is arriving and is questioning your work principles and stops the work done starting an assesment how things could be improved....I´d think this all may be a bit much in the end..but maybe we just don´t understand the structure ?

[NewtonMeter]

...why I find the sheer idea of three, current as well as former, technical directors discussing on how to design a wheel-nut so outright preposterous.

But I'm afraid that is what's going on with this team.

And you know this for a fact? Why would you think that's what they're doing?

What I don't get is that last year the team was chastised for having incompetent personnel. They went out and got the best guys available and they still get chastised for it? I mean, what would you have them do? Surely not get the almighty Adriaan "Holy ---" Newey, because damn, then there will be FOUR cooks in the kitchen. What a --- disaster that would be! IMO all this talk of "yeah I know how that from personal experience how terrible design by commitee is" talk bullshit and in fact those that spew it know jack --- and is making it up. Because otherwise you'd know that technical directors don't design wheelnuts.

There is NO evidence to suggest a row between these three are the cause of any woes the team finds itself in. Nothing. McLaren are finding themselves going backwards as well, do they have too many cooks as well? Oh please..

Firstly, they didn't design the car, the car was designed last year. So any shortcomings is not of their making. And secondly, how a wheelnut failure can be attributed to them not getting along is completely beyond me. I think some on these forums seriously lose perspective some times.

[marcush.]

just for the record:
The technical director is held responsible for everything technical going on with the team so NO matter who designed manufactured or traced the bit it´s the TD where the questions end.
You got 4 kings ? happy go round you will never be able to make anyone accountable for anything ..but at some stage the guy with the worst lobby -not the guy who is the reason for failure or underachievement -will get the kick ..
We are questioning the approach of veering from NO TD to 4 and now 3 TDs of sorts within a single year.

[SeijaKessen]

I just want to know when Michael plans on instilling those lost Germanic ideals into Mercedes GP to turn the team around.

Maybe he can give a pep speech to the team from the podium in the Reichstag.

[elf341]

I think xpensive is over-reacting about the "three kings".

I've also been in situations where everyone wants to be in charge, but also situations where others are happy just to focus on their area and let somebody else call the final shot and take the responsibility for that. Being leader always looks very attractive until you get there.
All three of Bob Bell, Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa are understated people who like to shun away from the limelight. I've intimated in the past about Willis's many interviews when he was TD of Honda that he complained about the position being too broad and him preferring to get his hands dirty in the CAD/head-of-aerodynamics type work. Bob Bell also talked about his displeasure when he was team principal at Renault, preferring the technical orientation. Aldo Costa, well, I think he has tasted the bitter politics that came with his TD experience at ferrari.
All three are very experienced, and very wealthy by now, and all three have been in that position at the top - I think they realise by now that there is more to life than just trying to be top dog and fight to become the leader. Sure, you may bump your take home pay by 10-20%, but at the expense of what?

It's not clear a single autocratic leader approach is right to me either. xpensive, you have often lauded Mike Gascoyne's "my way or the highway" approach - but what has it really gained him? His average tenure at each team is just a handful of years, and his best achievement is probably helping to put Renault on the road to their double championship, but he'd left before they even had Alonso's first victory! As Ross Brawn, I'd much rather have the three understated in a consortium than a single "blast 'em and past 'em" ego like Gascoyne.

Also I think their titles were just political , probably as a means of side-lining current people without being so obvious as to say e.g. "Hey, Bigois - Willis just took your job, please go run the windtunnel." Perhaps also a way of paying them more than they normally would a head of aero and head of chassis, which I think is justified.

[Richard]

Dead horse flogging alarm !

I’m getting a horrid sense of déjà-vu of a time when people repeatedly asserted their belief that certain organisational structures were unworkable. No evidence, no ability to let the conversation move on, just repetition ad-nausem over and over and over again until threads are beaten senseless.

For those with a peculiar fetish for obsessing about Brawn or the Merc organisational structure can scratch that itch by reading earlier pages in this thread again .... and again.... and again ... until you work yourself into a frenzy and achieve whatever it is you need to achieve. If that isn't good enough then go back to last years thread for more of the same. Just make sure you clean up after yourself and don’t harm others. That’s starting to conjure up an uncomfortable image, so please don’t tell us about it every time you have one of your urges.


....

On a positive note, the subject of optimum organisation structures in F1 is fascinating so well worth a new thread all of its own. Why not start off with comparison of the organisational structure of Merc compared to say Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren? Then perhaps compare to leading teams from other eras. That would be constructive and objective, then the conversation might have some validity .

[munudeges]

It really doesn't matter how civilised everyone is in that kind of organisation because this isn't something you can sort out over a cup of tea and a jammy dodger. The fact is that the job titles and descriptions there strongly imply a great deal of cross-over in jobs, responsibilities and decision making.

Take a look at other teams on the grid, or indeed, just about any successful team there has been. Look at Red Bull - head honcho Technical Director (head on the block), Head of Aerodynamics and Chief Designer (and that job title means head of mechanicals and physical car building in RB's case, not the wish-washy role it might mean in other teams). Why on Earth would you need to call them Engineering or Technology Directors? Would John Barnard, Gordon Murray or Colin Chapman have been around that kind of structure? Adrian Newey certainly isn't. I think not, and they're the most successful designers and engineers there have been in the business.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Or alternatively you could look at Mercedes increasing their "brain power".Costa Willis and Bell all have good credentials here, I see no issue with it so long as lines of communication are clear.

And no one here is privy to that.

[munudeges]

.........and lines of communication start right at the beginning with job titles and to a lesser extent job descriptions. It seems that people get an idea of what you do from your job title, and thus, it communicates something. Crazy concept I know.

[Morteza]

Let's put aside the things like too many bosses at Mercedes, do their jobs and positions interfere one another, etc. for a moment.

W03 is the brain child of Bell and Bigois? This is the team that designed two cars without any TD in 2010 and 2011. Who was responsible for W03, really? I mean the car shows the same symptoms of its predecessors at some areas. I know it is a better one compared to the last two years and, has actually won a race (but that win cannot be a game changer since even Williams have won a race this season), but Lotus has surpassed them this year with a car that although has yet to win a race, but a more capable one than that of Mercedes'. They are currently fifth in WCC. Could have they be fourth if Schumacher had not had those reliability problemes? Maybe; but that's another evidence of incompetence in this team compared to others. The only major update for W03 was in Monaco and since then there have been the invisible ones which have been mentioned, but could not be seen.

Here comes the question about Costa and Willis's influence: Are they along with Bell are working flat out on W04? Have the team stopped the developments of W03 and focused their attention on next year's car like they did the past two years? I simply see no influence of those two additions or I expect too much, really? Is it me or when James Key joined Sauber his influence was seen right from the beginning?