Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[FoxHound]

Honda gave them just enough to see them through the year. And to their credit, as they didn't have to.

This team had a budget of around 250 million per season. Honda gave them 100 million plus the prize and tv money of around 30-40 million.
That's a total of 140million, which is why Brawn was forced to make the cuts for 2009. It was still not enough, and Brawn had to ask for advance of the TV cash for 2010, in 2009.
Had Brawn not sold off to Mercedes, this team was faced with 3 options.

1.Virgin. Whom offered 40 million and was way below what was expected for the running concern.
2. Do an HRT an survive on a race by race basis, with further cuts to the then 400 staff, you probably looking at around 200-250.
3. Sell off the assets and close the concern as a whole.

So you have a dwindling talent pool, and the very real possibility of closure. Mercedes picked up the tab, and have gone about rebuilding. You could say they have dissapointed as a "factory team", but when you see the change that has gone on you can see why results have been mixed. I say mixed because this team has won, and has shown some innovation in design.
So now Mercedes is throwing everything at the team, new equipment, new staff etc etc. The W03 showed some very real promise, but was not developed from Spain onwards up until the Coanda exhaust was introduced. We will see next year if the sacrificial lamb W03 was worth it for the W04.

[SSS]

Brawn did not boast marcush. He was asked the question.


Isn't it funny people expected brawn to produce a winning w01 when "brawn gp" in 2009 had next to no resource and a factory slashed from 800 to 450 staff, losing good people along the way. They where on a hiding to nothing from the moment Honda pulled the plug.

Sauber has 250 people,Lotus has 450 odd people to Ferrari's 900 odd. And if you go by how good the car is over a season the Lotus or Sauber are pretty close to Red Bull or Ferrari on an average. Dont come up with sorry excuses

[SSS]

Honda gave them just enough to see them through the year. And to their credit, as they didn't have to.

This team had a budget of around 250 million per season. Honda gave them 100 million plus the prize and tv money of around 30-40 million.
That's a total of 140million, which is why Brawn was forced to make the cuts for 2009. It was still not enough, and Brawn had to ask for advance of the TV cash for 2010, in 2009.
Had Brawn not sold off to Mercedes, this team was faced with 3 options.

1.Virgin. Whom offered 40 million and was way below what was expected for the running concern.
2. Do an HRT an survive on a race by race basis, with further cuts to the then 400 staff, you probably looking at around 200-250.
3. Sell off the assets and close the concern as a whole.

So you have a dwindling talent pool, and the very real possibility of closure. Mercedes picked up the tab, and have gone about rebuilding. You could say they have dissapointed as a "factory team", but when you see the change that has gone on you can see why results have been mixed. I say mixed because this team has won, and has shown some innovation in design.
So now Mercedes is throwing everything at the team, new equipment, new staff etc etc. The W03 showed some very real promise, but was not developed from Spain onwards up until the Coanda exhaust was introduced. We will see next year if the sacrificial lamb W03 was worth it for the W04.

Another ridiculous explanation. What sacrificial Lamb? :Like BGP was for W01 ?? Or W02 was for W01 or W03 for W01??

Mercedes are hopeless. Already beaten by Toro Rosso they will next season fight with Carteham & Marussia.

Among your options being bought by Marussia was a brilliant option as they would have done a brilliant job. Marussia,if they had KERS, Mercedes engine, Mercedes gearbox, DDRS & half of those resources would easily beat Mercedes W03.

Its clear as day.

Marussia Petronas F1 team sound good. These excuses have been going on for 3 years now with no result and will go on for another 3 years when Lewis & Nico's career will totally be destroyed & the team will be reduced to HRT level results. Brawn will con someone else and find a Porsche and something and destroy the career of other quick drivers

[SSS]

Remember it took Red Bull something like 5 years to enjoy success.
In less time, Mercedes have accomplished more.

There was a point where Toro Rosso beat them in constructors. I bet you also was very vocal then?

Precisely.

It took Red Bull 5 years to win, and Mercedes 3.

The other comparison you could make is that Red Bull went backwards in year 4 they went backwards. That's 4 years WITH Adrian Newey, and their much vaunted management structure, and they finished.........7th.
People will say Red Bull didnt take over a WDC winning team. But the stark reality is, without the DDD loophole, the BGP was another mediocre car.
Before Brawn, Honda/BAR/Tyrell achieved no more than the Stewart team did. 5 podiums and a victory in 3 years is far better than what Honda managed in 3 year period, and comparable to the 6 years BAR had.

I guess detractors would want the silver paint to magically induce a culture of winning.

So?? They had the remnants of a Mindardi or a Jordon not billions of Toyota money and technology.

They had no big manufacturer backing them.

And BGP was a WDC WCC winning car. They had a winning car & they turned it upside down. Yea BGP will be mediocre but all others will be equally mediocre. When RBR had DD too BGP was only 1 point behind in the 2nd half of season behind RBR. BGP had a lot of good stuff including the Front Wing.

And they took this car & every year have been going downwards.

Also Toro Rosso the 8th or 9th best team is beating Mercedes now JET. HaHa. A win means s*** this year as its a lottery & almost everyone is winning. You need 2-3 wins & 4-5 podiums atleast this year to show you have a good car as anyone can win this year

[spadeflush]

What changed from 2009 to 2010? Gee that´s a hard one... i´ll let you pick out the blatantly obvious one.
And a very important one to Brawn´s success.

Double diffusers were banned in 2011. MGP suffered in 2010 cuz others caught up with the concept and the big 3 had better cars to begin with.

I was thinking more along the lines of the 18 months they spent developing the car, far longer then anyone else.
And the fact that they probably started extremely late on the 2010 design to put all focus and resources on their chance of winning titles in 09.

It wasn't simply the DD that made it great. It was an extremely well developed car.

And I was thinking that by blatantly obvious one, you were referring to the DD. IIRC work had begun on the W01 early enough for Brawn and Nick Fry to state multiple times that they would be championship contenders in 2010, only after the first few races did they admit that the car was too slow to challenge for wins and that because they started the development late, the fell back. But then, after looking at their excuses for the past 3 years, its easier to believe that wasn't the case.

This team needs a BIG change in the way they operate if they ever want to challenge for consistent wins. They started off with slow cars in 2010 and 2011 but managed to somehow maintain the gap (which was HUGE, arnd 1.5 seconds) from the front runners. In 2012 they had a very quick car in the W03 but their lack of understanding of the tyres and some clumsy decision making has led to one of the worst and frankly embarrassing in season downfalls for any works team.

[Cocles]

I can not express how happy I am that Mercedes has signed the concorde agreement. This is fantastic. Every race weekend, it puts a big smile on my face to see those silver arrows going around the track. It's frustrating that they're having problems, but its still a thrill having Mercedes finally giving it a go with their own works team after being gone for so long. Thank god.

And as an added prize, Mercedes managed to bring Schumacher back. Maybe we'll get to see him take another podium before the end of the season, but even if we don't, I'm just glad I got to spend three more years of my life watching one of my heroes haul butt in a Formula 1 car. In 2006, Schumacher's retirement was jarring. Having your hero come back in his 40's to race just a little bit more is a rare gift in F1, especially today, and for that I'm very thankful.

As an American, I have to go to some effort to seek out fellow F1 fans to discuss my favorite sport, and when I do it's to discuss the teams I love, how they're doing, and what they could do to be better. I especially love this forum, because of the technical insight provided by so many of the more engineering inclined individuals who frequent this place. (Scarbs posts here!)

I only hope that as my favorite team improves, it'll someday make some of you guys as happy as they make me. This is a great team, and I'm glad it gives us all so much to talk about.

[Imido_30]

I can not express how happy I am that Mercedes has signed the concorde agreement. This is fantastic. Every race weekend, it puts a big smile on my face to see those silver arrows going around the track. It's frustrating that they're having problems, but its still a thrill having Mercedes finally giving it a go with their own works team after being gone for so long. Thank god.

And as an added prize, Mercedes managed to bring Schumacher back. Maybe we'll get to see him take another podium before the end of the season, but even if we don't, I'm just glad I got to spend three more years of my life watching one of my heroes haul butt in a Formula 1 car. In 2006, Schumacher's retirement was jarring. Having your hero come back in his 40's to race just a little bit more is a rare gift in F1, especially today, and for that I'm very thankful.

As an American, I have to go to some effort to seek out fellow F1 fans to discuss my favorite sport, and when I do it's to discuss the teams I love, how they're doing, and what they could do to be better. I especially love this forum, because of the technical insight provided by so many of the more engineering inclined individuals who frequent this place. (Scarbs posts here!)

I only hope that as my favorite team improves, it'll someday make some of you guys as happy as they make me. This is a great team, and I'm glad it gives us all so much to talk about.

As happy as you might sound (which is something I adore), you have to come back to reality. They are back but..... you might want to read the pages in this forum and see the performance (which I think you do already) to understand my disappointment.

[marcush.]

In 1955 when Daimler decided to leave motorsports the decision was born out of need and nothing else really.The racing team bound the recources of the very best development engineers for large parts of the year and big tasks in terms of growth and brínging series technology forward was on their agenda.
Clearly Mercedes race cars were developped in Stuttgart exactly at the same place and Daimlers very best people.
I agree times have changed and it would definetely not work like that todays. But one has to realise MGP is Daimler only by name not in content .There is Haug and Schattling and maybe a few engineers in their international team ,but it´s certainly not a german team and it certainly is grown as DAI s worksteam it has evolved from a very rich private team which became Honda F1 and went into new ownership 3 years ago or maybe even less -it got a new ways of finance.

I have to admit I had a soft spot for them when they started out as BAR evolving into something of a proper formula1 team till 2005/6.
What happened in 2009 was back then a miracle turnaround and it seemed to be a good and logical decision to buy into this team.Mercedes ,Schumacher ,Rosberg right everyone bought the idea of instant or at least credibility and sucess within 3 years .
But it all was a fluke .Yes they can build a formula 1 machine ,no doubt about it .But so can a lot of teams ,including HRT and Marussia.You could walk to Henry Pescarolo or Bob Riley ,Crawford or Pratt&Miller -they could as well.

One has to ask what does differentiate the also rans from the backmarkers and the constant front runners.
Obviously it is not a some expertise in CFD ,Aero etc - Caterham has hired all the lead figures from FI and Ferrari ,Mclaren but the performance stayed wit Force India .Sauber could do without Key ,but Key managed a turnaound of competitiveness for Toro rosso in no time as he did at Sauber.
Big names in the business -Gascoyne ,Wirth ,Costa ,Willis,Bell seem to not make a differnce at all....HRTs new challenger was not THAT big a step forward.Bell could not turn around MGPs fortunes big time.

It´s worth to look what teams who suddenly or gradually rise with consitency are doing different.The massive hiring and installion of new head figures is certainly not bringing success.
Taking James Key as an example it is more than obvious that a Technical director CAN in deed turn things around to the positive instantly.He cannot túrn a turd into perfection but he can grasp instantly what´s wrong with the car ,approach etc...chip away on the top priorities and this alone will turn things around.
W03 won a race this year .so without a doubt there is potential but poor MGP has no clue how to release it when it counts.
I bet Newey would arrive at MGP rip of a few things and the car would fly(on the ground).And I´m quite certain Neweys strong point is not tyre understanding...

[NewtonMeter]

I bet Newey would arrive at MGP rip of a few things and the car would fly(on the ground).And I´m quite certain Neweys strong point is not tyre understanding...

It didn't work out quite that way when he arrived at RBR in 2006. It took him a good 3 years and a major change of regulations to boot. Just saying...

[Richard]

It´s worth to look what teams who suddenly or gradually rise with consitency are doing different.The massive hiring and installion of new head figures is certainly not bringing success.

There will always be a good range of technical expertise in the teams and Merc have certainly bought in enough technical talent. A successful team does need that technical depth, people who can crunch the numbers and work through the rigour of design iterations as they evolve the design.

However good technicians (exaggerating to illustrate the point) are not the same as inspiration, leadership and creativity. That's a very rare commodity. That's how small teams punch above their weight, we're seeing that with Sauber. I'm also of the view that it is often a combination of people, rarely one person on their own.

That rare talent is very context sensitive, a genius in one team could be a dud in another. Two or three individuals who provide great leadership might be dysfunctional in another combination. We frequently see it in football with coaches or players leading teams to success only to fail when they change clubs.

In my mind we're seeing Merc trying to break out of the trap that befell Honda and Toyota, they're brave to take that on and I wish them luck - they're going to need it.

[marcush.]

I bet Newey would arrive at MGP rip of a few things and the car would fly(on the ground).And I´m quite certain Neweys strong point is not tyre understanding...

It didn't work out quite that way when he arrived at RBR in 2006. It took him a good 3 years and a major change of regulations to boot. Just saying...

That´s an easy one.The regs were stable and well understood at that time .Magic bullets -not really on the cards .So the teams were converging towards a common direction and Newey did not hide his frustration as he saw no area to make an impact.
Also it is fair to say Jaguar was far from representing a state of the art facility and they first had to build up some areas to be able to evaluate things with the level of detail precision as necessary.
RB4 was already showing signs of getting into the groove and in 2009 they were -apart of the ddd which was in their view illegal-the best car already.
Newey has the ideas to suit the regs.He does at times not get it right first time..as we saw this year .but obviously the concept was sound and the second or third iteration worked -which tells us he does NOT always understand instantly what´s going on but he knows WHERE performance is to be found when others still divert recources in other areas.

interestingly MGP had their DDRS prioritised when all the others focused on other areas (exhaust,brakeducts etc)
I think that MGP got it wrong big time ,as the DDRS may be very tricky to tune .This may have caused them to retune the DDRS every time they changed a bit on the car ...multiplying workload.
RedBull first developped their car and added DDRS only as the icing of the cake...so it did not drain valuable development recources.

[kris]

I bet Newey would arrive at MGP rip of a few things and the car would fly(on the ground).And I´m quite certain Neweys strong point is not tyre understanding...

It didn't work out quite that way when he arrived at RBR in 2006. It took him a good 3 years and a major change of regulations to boot. Just saying...

Is it possible the 3 kings saw something in the car which made them think that ripping a few things might not work on it and there was a need for some fundamentals to change?

So to effectively utilise the resources for this year, they went about understanding tyres, upgrading wind tunnels and working on 2013 and 2014 rather than spend time on this version of the car.

To keep people from bugging them too much they introduced late and nominal updates (exhausts etc) and would have had prior skepticism about their effectiveness.

I believe this could explain why the big brains do not seem to be as effecient as they are known to be or why W03 is just falling behind the rest of the pack in development and race pace.

[marcush.]

No the car was competitive at some point.
So one has to admit the basics of the car cannot be totally wrong ...as it is certaily not 4 or 5% off the pace as HRT or Marussia.
But there is a a general lack of understanding apparent or smokes and walls hiding of facts:The team is making statements what the car can do where it´s strenths are and what it´s weaknesses are but that does not necessarily translate into their results on the tracks..At the start it was the quick corners it did not like ,but it did not perform on tracks with no quick corners they claimed Suzuka was bad territory but expected to do much better in japan ..but it was just as bad.
One should really know what the car you are campaigning for 7months or something now is cpable of doing and where it does not work or like to be..
sure you have to prepare for next season and sure you have to prepare for 2014 already...but so do all teams.It´s the same every year .You just cannot start with next years car in october as you will end up with a half finished product next year.
In a situation like 2012 with the final year before a massive change in regs it is certainly no good idea to throw all your work away and start from scratch - but this would just be valid if you are looking for small improvements.Starting afresh would certainly show who is quickly graspingthe ins and outs of decisions and you´d see who is capable of developing a car and systems quickly and where you need to change staff to arrive more quickly at good results.
I see them still struggling to work as a team.

[FoxHound]

Well Brawn isn't saying it loudly, but there does seem to be a push for 2013.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/103518?

"Our chassis team are designing next year's car and there are certain directions they want to confirm.
The aero changes you saw on Friday morning [in Korea] with the rear wing [double-DRS] are primarily for next year. So there is a mix.We don't want to sacrifice the remainder of this year while working for next year, but there is a strong aspect [of looking to 2013].At Suzuka we had two rear different suspension geometries, and we had some other fundamental differences, so we are plugging those things into the programme. But we still want to have a respectable performance for the rest of the year.
There are still some things we want to try with the car in the last four races, particularly for next year."

Sounds like the W03 is a guinea pig alright.

[Cocles]

So they're killing two birds with one stone at this point.

1) Develop the W04 by using the W03 as a testbed.
2) Stay ahead of Sauber by upgrading the W03 with test parts marked for next year.

Makes sense. I have to wonder how long they've set their sites on the W04.

In April they announced they were studying the tires, which was likely just a half truth, "We're going to study the tires, because our windtunnel is going to be on hiatus for a little while, so we can use 60% modeling for developing the W04."

So they start the season.
Decide a month later to upgrade the windtunnel.
Ride out a chunk of the downtime with upgrades already in the works, that we ultimately see in Monaco.
They then sit on those upgrades for the rest of the summer, waiting on the windtunnel, and just study setup variables.
Summer break ends, windtunnel back in operation, we now start seeing W04 elements being tested on the W03.
And there's your season.