Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[SeijaKessen]

nah Dave,
Lauda vowed to start work with immediate effect on returning from Japan ....I think we will have the pleasure to hear some inside stories on RTL during 2012 races already -so he actively helped save this Thread to stay ON TOPIC !

Lauda and Zetsche will be at pains to provide Schumacher with the best service possible for the reamaining races in an attempt to ease him into retirement ...but is the GERMAN Team really willing to make it possible? Or is it Nick Fry working the paralell universe to make sure we all know why Schumacher is an outdate..

You know Marcus, I remember when there were those claiming Lauda's position was nothing more than ceremonial.

Niki knows best eh?

When he shows up for any MGP conference, do you think he will be wearing anything other than that ratty Parmalat hat? I keep expecting to see a Brabham BT46 on the starting grid when Lauda is at a race.

I hear the German media has been less than pleased with Michael being forced out. I wonder how Ross, DrZ, and Lauda will explain to everyone that the right move was made when another dismal season is unfolding in 2013.

I fully expect this whole situation to serve as the motivating factor for Michael to continue on. I know I would just to show how MGP screwed things up, not the driver.

[marcush.]

Zetsche already voiced that he did not have to decide on schumacher or Hamilton...Lauda already denied being instrumental,Brawn ,Haug everybody has flatly refused to being responsible or instrumental in the move...
A very telling sign of people talking business .....

The real problem occurs when Schumacher is in fact signing for another outfit and thereis no chance for DAI to save its face by directing engines towards that outfit ...
The absolute horror scenario would be Schumacher winning a race this year leaving for say Sauber and chasing down Rosberg in the points score next year Merc engines or not.

Alonso publcly said Schumacher would have scored 2 or three wins this year if he was a Sauber driver .
I´d say the same is true for Williams ...a scenario worth a lot especially with a view of Williams particulaily dependand on public perception .Schumacher signing for Williams would pput them back on the map BIGTIME.

sorry for sliding off topic by a large margin....

[WhiteBlue]

I reckon it is likely that the technical structure at MGP is provisional and will evolve towards more focus. On the other hand they could evolve towards a committee structure as seen at McLaren. Hard to predict at this time but I lean towards the first option.

Niki has obviously served the Daimler board very well by sorting the problems between Brawn and Ecclestone out and making the concord deal possible. It shows that he is a capable person in negotiations regardless of what some users here think of him. MGP has the hard task to become more competitive very quickly and build up the structure for the time when Brawn will enjoy his money and quit the racing business. So there is no option to build the technical team around him. This leads me to believe his main role will be that of advising the Daimler board on top level HR and process engineering issues. He is planted on the MGP board to keep the Daimler board informed and advised about all those issue so that they can be comfortable in their decisions.

If anybody is being made redundant by having Lauda there it is Haug. He obviously failed to solve the concord crisis and we can expect him to move to retirement relatively soon.

[marcush.]

with all due respect ,Lauda is a LONG time friend of Ecclestone and just was the perfect person to ease Daimler into signing the contract...This does not qualify him for anything at all when fullfilling his role as chairman of the board.
If i were zetsche I would fear he was too Ecclestone friendly if anything..I don´t think he is sold on Ecclestone ,but rest assured Lauda is just serving his very own agenda.

[FoxHound]

Marcush, you should be ecstatic at the news. It gives you 7 more years to throw what you've got at anyone affiliated with the team and Brawn....Now Lauda is in the firing line

[diego1960]

On the contrary, marcush is one of the most logical users here, and his posts are valuable for us all. If he is "throwing everything he has" it is only because he wants to see Merc succeed and not fail miserably as they have done until now.

In the Merc news, Lauda's position remains unclear, I still don't understand what his role will be, purely suprevising the operations at a GP or something more? Is he being placed there by Dr.Z or the board who are losing faith to Dr.Z's choices? How was he useful in the Concorde negotiations? What is his knowledge and is he really that persuasive? Questions everywhere...

As for MSC, I hoped that he would find a seat somewhere and get that elusive win but it rather seems unlikely now. There is an "Irvine" (I think not the driver, maybe a journo) on twitter who supposedly said that MSC is to retire and take a role as an abassador for Merc in 2013.
Worst case scenario easily, I can't get it out of my mind that he was being pushed out. Funny thing that no one in the whole Mercedes organization admits to being the one responsible fr the decision of his replacement, maybe they are afraid of the way they will be stigmatized by that? I know that many people, fans, from all arond the world are frustrated by this decision, even if they consider Hamilton a great driver. Still, it seems that only MSC loses from this deal, unless he has an ace up his sleeve that we will learn about, maybe a new contract at Ferrari/Lotus?

[snoop1050]

There is an "Irvine" (I think not the driver, maybe a journo) on twitter

https://twitter.com/IrvineF1
seems to be little more than an f1 fan with his own blog that doesnt attend races by the looks of it.

maybe trying to make a name for himself by guessing whats going to happen

[elf341]

True diego. The only ace would be the Ferrari or Lotus ticket. The annoying thing about this whole incident is that the car situation has let people to devalue schumacher's talent, and so denying him the 2013 drive prevents him from redeeming his image. I mean, just imagine if next year Schumacher had 3 wins and several podiums, it would become obvious to everyone that his relatively poor performance since 2010 had been car-related.
It reminds me of people's opinion of Webber before 2009/10 when he got a good car - or Alonso in 2009.

[raymondu999]

So according to Brawn (in Autosport)

Aldo Costa is doing the 2013 car and Geoff [Willis] is focused on the 2014 car at the moment.

[Cocles]

So according to Brawn (in Autosport)

Aldo Costa is doing the 2013 car and Geoff [Willis] is focused on the 2014 car at the moment.

I wonder if that means Geoff does what he needs to, then hands it off to Aldo? Either way, it's an interesting insight.

[Raptor22]

They're just splitting resources. Aldo not being the most out of the box thinker wil be tasked with evolving the W03 in W04.
Willis will be working on the clean sheet 2014 car which gives him time to try out a lot of the out of the box stuff. Remember those cars will have...

* a new engine turbocharged, 1.6 litre V6 with an 8-speed gearbox, a ninety-degree engine bank angle with fixed crankshaft axis and mounting points to the chassis
* the engines will be limited to 15,000rpm.
* Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS will be incorporated into the design of the engine;
* supplementary power source will the Thermal Energy Recovery System (TERS
* The use of lower noses for ssafety. The tip of the nose must be no more than 185mm above the ground in comparison to the 550mm allowed in 2012.
* narrower front wings, and a lower incidence (shallower angle of attack) on their rear wings

Potentially also a renewed push for the introduction of closed-canopy cockpits.

Willis will hav to come up with a winning concept in order to make the leap to get into RedBull/McLaren /Ferrari territory.

Since W04 will an evolution of W03 I doubt its will have any silver bullet....

[Mika1]

So according to Brawn (in Autosport)

Aldo Costa is doing the 2013 car and Geoff [Willis] is focused on the 2014 car at the moment.

Link? Can't find it.

[SeijaKessen]

So according to Brawn (in Autosport)

Aldo Costa is doing the 2013 car and Geoff [Willis] is focused on the 2014 car at the moment.

I wonder if that means Geoff does what he needs to, then hands it off to Aldo? Either way, it's an interesting insight.

It's going to be an umitigated disaster.

MGP will be fielding less than stellar cars for the foreseeable future.

This really shows how little Ross knows about running a F1 team.

Back in the days when he was MrM's representative to Benetton and then Ferrari, both teams when winning, used one designer. Rory Byrne was the one who designed those cars. McLaren takes the same approach to building cars...while they may challenge, their time of winning multiple titles was nearly 20 years ago. All the historically successful teams tend to let one person run the design and delegate as necessary. When you start asking allowing anyone collecting paycheck to put their two cents in...well things tend not to work out so well...as we're seeing on a monthly basis with MGP.

[Dragonfly]

More recent is RBR delegating to Newey the authority to have the final word and letting him show his creativity.
I recently asked here about the English version of a popular proverb, thinking exactly about what you say.
Here it is: Too many cooks does spoil the broth.

[Mika1]

McLaren isn't a good example, this year they made a good car. 2009, 2010 and 2011 were pretty poor.