Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

[FoxHound]

Alonso/Hamilton is a combo that will work, and here is why.
Merc want maximum exposure.
Alonso wants out of Ferrari if it means walking into a winning machine.
Hamilton craves recognition, and he'll get that by beating Alonso.

All boxes ticked.

Merc can take the hit for the rivalry, because they will have a net gain PR wise. For them, its more than just winning. They aren't F1 purists, as some teams pertain to be, but they want to be seen as fair and giving the whole effort a good crack. Which thus far has proven fruitful to them.

Alonso is a different beast as is Hamilton, they share an affinity to be the best. And the only way that will conclusively happen is if those 2 duel! What better way than race together?

This could be Senna contra Prost all over my F1 natives.

[johnsonwax]

Alonso/Hamilton is a combo that will work, and here is why.
Merc want maximum exposure.
Alonso wants out of Ferrari if it means walking into a winning machine.
Hamilton craves recognition, and he'll get that by beating Alonso.

All boxes ticked.

Hamilton/Alonzo will result in many Mercedes cars arriving at the finish line with far fewer parts than they started, when they finish at all. Neither driver will yield for the other. Ever. They will take each other off. It will be ugly and it will cost Mercedes the championship. They're fools if they don't realize this.

[MercedesAMGSpy]

Alonso-Hamilton is asking for problems and Nico Rosberg as a German driving for a German brand is a good marketing tool.

[gray41]

If the race trend continues with Lewis beating Nico and the pair bringing home maximum points, why would they change that formula?

Vettel and Webber over 4 years secured 4xWDC and 4xWCC, We could see something very similar from Mercedes.

[FoxHound]

Maybe its better how you won, rather than what you won.

[smlbstcbr]

Will Daimler promote an internal battle that could potentially kill their successful F1 team just for PR?
I doubt it.

[thomin]

Rosberg has a contract throughout 2016. The team obviously has long term plans with him. Signing Alonso next to Hamilton is asking for trouble. I'm sure this is Fernando's management testing the waters and putting pressure on Ferrari by spreading rumors. It could well be the first jab in Kimi's direction. Sounds a lot like all those "Alonso to Red Bull" rumors last year. I don't believe a word.

[wunderkind]

Rosberg has a contract throughout 2016. The team obviously has long term plans with him. Signing Alonso next to Hamilton is asking for trouble. I'm sure this is Fernando's management testing the waters and putting pressure on Ferrari by spreading rumors. It could well be the first jab in Kimi's direction. Sounds a lot like all those "Alonso to Red Bull" rumors last year. I don't believe a word.

Agree.

[Cocles]

From what I gathered, Costa was responsible for the mechanical parts, Willis for the aero and Bob Bell was sort of the guy overseeing everything, though from what was leaked last year, Bell was more occupied with working on the W04 during the 2013 season when the development of the W05 was well underway.

Bell was focused on "engine integration" for the W05. Lowe headed up development on the W04 after Costa and Willis had fully moved on to the W05 and W06. Don't forget, Brawn was still on board too.

I'm quoting Bell from an interview previously discussed on here. Remember he kind of disappeared for awhile, and finally someone in an interview asked him what he was up to and he replied with two words, '"engine integration". Obviously that probably was not the only thing he worked on, but it stated it was what he was busy with in the background.

[Tommorris747]

Totally disagree. Silt and Adam Cooper are the only journalists out there who regularly cover the business of F1 and their articles dont seem to be as extreme as some of the others IMHO. They write for all the top magazines and newspapers which is a good indication of quality in itself. Dont agree with you about kers anyway as the cost of it is surely no where near as much as the engines so the 120 figure sounds to be accurate...

Where did I mention Adam Cooper?

It is your right to disagree, I have no issue with someone disagreeing if they put forward a valid reason.
But I cannot see any validity to your disagreement.

Here is the news piece, and I suggest you read more of his stories before coming to a final conclusion.
http://www.pitpass.com/39408/Mercedes-most-costly-loss

The lack of understanding, the clear stupidity of this "news piece" is there for all to see.
One moment it is...

In fact, despite the engine freeze, which the FIA told the world would cut costs, Mercedes spent more money on its engines in 2008 than in any of the past five years.

...Implying Mercedes spend was entirely on it's engines.

Then he hot foots onto...

To maximise the lead time, Mercedes begins work on the cutting-edge V8 F1 engines in the year before they are introduced so the bulk of its spending last year was dedicated to its 2009 campaign.

Did Mr Sylt ever consider, that in the previous 5 years Mercedes did not supply 2 other teams?
Force India and Brawn used Merc V8s in 2009, the logisitcs in supplying 3 teams from one will add 10s of millions to the costs. No mention was made of this, but of course he has his motives for writing this rubbish.

Perhaps the most concerning thing is that according to Mercedes, the sharp increase in money spent on the engines was due primarily to the development of Kers which of course the F1 teams have agreed not to use next year.

Ahhhhhhh so KERS is now "engines"? The whole newspiece is back to front!
Zytek will be seething....And what is even more amusing is that the Independant(whom he works for on occasion) ran the story of Zytek supplying McLaren Merc 2 months before Sylt published his er, story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/moto ... 70107.html

Finally, I will give you a clue as to whom bank rolls Mr Sylt. Here is a list of stories as published by him in the last 7 years.
Look how many gushing new stories there are for the diminutive ringmaster we all love and hate.
http://journalisted.com/christian-sylt?allarticles=yes

Nothing against Mr C Sylt the man, as I don't know the guy. But as a journalist, it is shocking to see the absolute lamentable quality of his shoddy reports. Inaccuracies, agendas, non stories, factually incorrect information etc.
I've given you my opinion now please, feel free to dissect and reflect on what I have given you.

My rule of thumb is going by the publication not the writer. It's easy to tell which ones are reliable and they clearly have measures in place to stop celebrity dross, lies and low quality from entering their pages. Sticking with credible outlets has served me well through hackgate and Murdoch's scheming. He missed out on Snowden, the MPs expenses and that's no coincidence. After all the muck that came out about his rags you can understand why people would avoid them.

I've googled Sylt and seen that he writes for the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Financial Times and the Independent which are about the only English papers that can be trusted. He doesnt seem to be fly by night as I went from one of his articles in the Telegraph to putting his name into the search box and he seems to have been one of their writers for over five years. I doubt that a paper like that would have someone on their books for years if they were dodgy. The same goes for the Independent, Guardian and Financial Times. I don't think they are up there with the Telegraph as one has sold up, one is too far left and the other hardly shows an opinion. But they are world's apart from the other rags out there!

I literally put my money on the Telegraphs writers when I make my stock picks and Sylt is one of its men so he has my trust as they all do. When they blew the lid on the MPs expenses I really felt like my support had paid off and the only other time I can think of like that was when the Guardian got Snowden. They are a little too left for my taste but I trust their standards nearly as much as the Telegraph and Sylt has been writing for them since 2011 according to its website. I dont believe they would have someone on their books for that long if he wasnt credible. These papers have high standards and you can be sure that Im not the only person who is putting their money on them!

Slyt also appears to be a regular guest on the Beeb as Google brings up videos of him discussing the biz of F1 on the BBC as well as CNN. Despite Saville and the gravy train to former leaders I still put my faith in them over any other station.

[FoxHound]

He is the writer, the creator of some of the most misleading sport/financial journalism I've seen.
Whether his outlet is CNN or BBC is irrelevant to me as his stories, as I've demonstrated, are poorly structured and factually inaccurate (not always).

He missed some very basic information in the Merc story, and it left me in no doubt about his quality or more pertinently, the lack thereof. That is my view, backed up with the story in question dissected to demonstrate its glaring flaws.
If you put your trust in the man, not the organisation, then that is your choice as is right.

Funny that alot of his stories paint Mr Ecclestone in a very favourable light too, wouldn't you say?
It could even be suggested he has ascended mere hack work to be a mouthpiece for the sports finances, telling what they want you to know rather than what you should know.
I'm on my Mobile right now so I cannot cut and paste and provide links, its a pain in the ain!! However if you google Gribkowsky and Sylt it will bring up the most anodyne reporting of the affair (its a Telegraph piece). Something his investigative journalism failed to uncover for 6 years and makes little or no mention of wrong doing on BE's part.

So all things considered, I wouldn't trust the man with counting beans if it has anything to do with fiscal numbers related to F1.

[Tommorris747]

He is the writer, the creator of some of the most misleading sport/financial journalism I've seen.
Whether his outlet is CNN or BBC is irrelevant to me as his stories, as I've demonstrated, are poorly structured and factually inaccurate (not always).

He missed some very basic information in the Merc story, and it left me in no doubt about his quality or more pertinently, the lack thereof. That is my view, backed up with the story in question dissected to demonstrate its glaring flaws.
If you put your trust in the man, not the organisation, then that is your choice as is right.

Funny that alot of his stories paint Mr Ecclestone in a very favourable light too, wouldn't you say?
It could even be suggested he has ascended mere hack work to be a mouthpiece for the sports finances, telling what they want you to know rather than what you should know.
I'm on my Mobile right now so I cannot cut and paste and provide links, its a pain in the ain!! However if you google Gribkowsky and Sylt it will bring up the most anodyne reporting of the affair (its a Telegraph piece). Something his investigative journalism failed to uncover for 6 years and makes little or no mention of wrong doing on BE's part.

So all things considered, I wouldn't trust the man with counting beans if it has anything to do with fiscal numbers related to F1.

I hear what you say and it got me to do some more digging into this. What a way to spend a Sunday Had to do it though because I trust my money with the share tips in the Telegraph business so its a matter close to my heart and wallet! Thanks to Mr Google I dug up a website which holds company financial records and I got the ones for <Mercedes HighPerformanceEngines> which are mentioned in the article you linked to. Here's the link to the finance records:
https://www.duedil.com/company/01760288 ... ns-limited

I didn't have to get far into them to find what I need! The first line of the first page says that:

<The principal activity of the company is the design, development and manufacture of Mercedes-Benz Formula One engines which power the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One Team.>

I added up the numbers in the article you linked to and it shows that the costs total increased 22% to £96.1m in 2008. Going backwards shows that it was higher than any of the past five years so from this evidence the article is correct to say that:

<Mercedes spent more money on its engines in 2008 than in any of the past five years. The costs of Mercedes' HighPerformanceEngines division which designs, develops and manufactures the engines rocketed 22% to £96.1m last year.>
http://www.pitpass.com/39408/Mercedes-most-costly-loss

Your point is based on the theory that it was wrong for the article to imply Mercedes spend was entirely on it's engines. Youre right that the article does this and it is backed up by the financial record which says <The principal activity of the company is the design, development and manufacture of Mercedes-Benz Formula One engines which power the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One Team.> Anyone can check that by downloading the 2008 financial records on the link above.

Its up to you if you dislike a writer but youre in the minority here. Trawling thru Google comes up with links to articles written by Slyt in virtually all the English papers and a few international ones too. I counted 8 in England and 3 international - Financial Times, Forbes business and Wall Street Journal. Admit that Im not a regular reader of them but they dont have a bad rep.

Have to say that Ive never seen a writer who works for so many newspapers and plugging his name into the search boxes on their websites shows that he has been doing this for some time. The oldest articles I could find go back a decade. Thats not a flash in the pan! Most of the papers are quality names like my favorites the Telegraph and the Guardian but he works for some red top rags too. No idea why someone would want to write for tabloids when they have years of experience at broadsheets with the calibre of the Telegraph, Guardian, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Before you got me looking into this I wouldnt have believed that any writer could write for so many rival papers but heres the proof:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/search/?quer ... 22&Search=
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/christian-sylt
http://www.cityam.com/profile/christian-sylt
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/home/searc ... ian%20Sylt
http://www.express.co.uk/search/Sylt/?s=Sylt
http://search.ft.com/search?ftsearchTyp ... an+Sylt%22
http://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/
http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/stor ... earch=Sylt

On top of that youve got the TV interviews with the Beeb, Bloomberg and CNN which all come up by Googling Sylt. Heres links to some of em:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/sp ... siness.cnn
http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/bu ... t-intv.cnn
http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=isp_t ... inance.cnn
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/sp ... siness.cnn
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/70292300/
http://twitpic.com/d3l2f3

The most well known TV stations want to speak to this guy and Englands most credible newspapes have had his writing in their pages for five to ten years. They are papers and channels with tens of millions of readers and viewers and they must have massive teams of editors, fact checkers and lawyers. If Sylth had written for one or two of them for only a year or two then may be I could follow you but not when he has written for 8 of em for 5 to 10 years! Theres just no real chance they would have kept him on if his work was wrong or attracted significant criticism.

As I mentioned, the only other writer I have seen with this kind of track record is Adam Cooper who is always in Autosport, Motor Sport and Racer and sometimes writes about the business of racing. The difference is that they are all magazines whereas Sylt is in newspapers and TV. All of the other F1 writers seem to be tied to just one outlet.

It doesnt surprise me at all that he writes so much about Ecclestone because he is the guy who runs the business and that seems to be Sylt's patch. Thru all the Googling I didnt see one article by Syltt about the racing or sport itself. I did see one article about some organisation he set up where all the drivers and team bosses send him interviews and personal photographs but thats still not really racing even if it involves all of the the drivers. Anyway thats my summary. As I said you had me concerned at first about where Im putting my money but the stuff I came up with here put my worries to rest for sure.

[FoxHound]

Read my previous post.

I do not dispute that Mercedes spent 96 million.
What sylt has written, is to intimate the money was spent during a frozen engine formula and by so doing "developing" its engines.

He makes his statment then mentions kers as an after thought.
And, if you read my previous post you would also see that it makes no mention of Mercedes having to supply 3 teams instead of 1 in 2009.
Did mr sylt omit this purposefully to suit his story, or was the ommission just an oversight, as alot of his work tends to show?

[Tommorris747]

Read my previous post.

I do not dispute that Mercedes spent 96 million.
What sylt has written, is to intimate the money was spent during a frozen engine formula and by so doing "developing" its engines.

He makes his statment then mentions kers as an after thought.
And, if you read my previous post you would also see that it makes no mention of Mercedes having to supply 3 teams instead of 1 in 2009.
Did mr sylt omit this purposefully to suit his story, or was the ommission just an oversight, as alot of his work tends to show?

Have you emailed Sylte about this? What did he say if so? It doesnt look right to me and I think you need to go back and read your post on 03 May 2014, 20:55

You said this:

<Did Mercedes HPP spend 120 million? Yes.
Was it entirely on the frozen engines? No.>

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is not accurate. The financial record for Mercedes' HighPerformanceEngines says that <The principal activity of the company is the design, development and manufacture of Mercedes-Benz Formula One engines which power the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One Team.> Anyone can check that by downloading the 2008 financial records on the link below
https://www.duedil.com/company/01760288 ... ns-limited

This is the first error. The second error is that you suggest spending on Kers is not spending on engines. Kers and now ERS is part of the power unit so that is not correct either. The link you gave says that the original article was printed in the FT which is not a paper I read but I imagine that it has armies of editors, fact checkers and lawyers. No disrespect FoxHound but I would be surprised if you had spotted flaws which they had not.

Your general argument is 'do not trust anything that 'X' writes' which is closed minded. When the person you are talking about is writing for the most credible papers in England and talking on the most well known TV stations in Europe then it makes your point look even more weak. As I said in an earlier post, my benchmark is the name of the publication not the writer and I would never say of anyone 'do not trust anything they write' because I do not know if they will write something which is true in future. As much as I would like one I dont have a crystal ball

I would also never say (as you did in the post I mentioned above) that someone wrote something "to make a political point for his master". I would only say this if I had concrete proof becuase if I was wrong I could get into legal trouble and so could the web site which is the last thing I need
I dont know if you have proof but I do know of people who have got into legal trouble by being sued for comments online (not about racing).

[FoxHound]

TM747,

I've no issue with the man personally as I've said. But how you explain the discrepancies in that newspiece and come to any other conclusion?