Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[Richard]

True - none of us know the actual targets & metrics used by Merc.

As outside observers we can see that their overall performance isn't much better (or perhaps worse) compared to last year. however it is a long season and they could get things sorted in the later half. Any engineer would be impressed to see that come together. The indicators of Bell, Costa & Willis's influence will be reliability and rigour behind the scenes, and that will show up later in the season when we see if they have stomach for a long tough season.

In terms of perception, Roseberg's win may have artificially raised expectations, peaked too early. Given one win in a season it would be better towards the end so they could point to improving performance over the year. Otherwise human perception sees a race winning team become a race losing team.

Cold statistics would see a singe race win as a moment of luck, being in the right place at the right time, the dice just happened to favour Merc that day. The biggest factor isn't the glamour of a win, but being trounced up by Lotus. That's worrying because it means Merc need to raise their game just to stand still, ie 4th best team. Merc will have hoped to be challenging for the big 3 but they see the team from Enstone leapfrog them to steal that honour.

Lets see how the rest of the season plays out, lets see if Lotus can keep their advantage over the whole season.

[bhall]

Let's try a different angle.

Bob Bell thought this was an excellent idea.


Aldo Costa thought this was an excellent idea.


Reactionary development had no impact on this car.


Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 Mercedes AMG Petronas All-Stars.

[Morteza]

Let's try a different angle.

Bob Bell thought this was an excellent idea.
[img]http://thumbnails71.imagebam.com/20208/ ... 11.jpg[img]

Aldo Costa thought this was an excellent idea.
[img]http://thumbnails76.imagebam.com/20208/ ... 04.jpg[img]

Reactionary development had no impact on this car.
[img]http://thumbnails47.imagebam.com/20208/ ... 98.jpg[img]

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 Mercedes AMG Petronas All-Stars.

Where was Geoff Willis in 2009? Red Bull maybe?

[bhall]

Are you implying that Willis Deserves credit for the RB5 despite the fact that he worked for Adrian Newey and left the team halfway through the season, which, coincidentally, was around about the time the RB5 became dominant? If so, doesn't he also deserve credit for the RB3 and the RB4, two cars that didn't exactly set the world on fire?

[SeijaKessen]

...it's clear the only thing that has improved is Schumacher's reliability since management thought it necessary to be watching his car more carefully.

Except, you know, their second podium finish of the season. Your statement, and sentiment, ignore the facts. You're also referring to two total races as if that's enough data to constitute some sort of "trend".

Maybe Schumi knows more than us...and Zetsche has already ringed the bell vowing to close the door when 3rd is not the result of this campaign....or 2 wins...I´m pretty sure there are clearly defined performance targets written down for MGP and those targets were not met in year 1 and 2 ....resultingh in more strictly defined targets for this year..

After the W02, for all we know the minimal target for 2012 was already achieved in China. Probably not, but the point remains, we don't know. Invented narratives like these really don't tell us anything. We don't have enough facts to speculate so specifically.

Cocles,

Let's be realistic here, if you see smoke, there is a great likelihood that the smoke belongs to a fire.

MGP announces they will be watching Schumacher's car more closely, and suddenly he starts finishing races?

I highly doubt the win in China somehow buys a massive reprieve for all those involved in MGP. If they had been consistently in the top 5 since then, it would carry more weight.

Undeniable is the fact that MGP has been going backwards for a few months, and it's interesting that the Scuderia manages to move forward in spite of having what was thought to be the worst car among the top teams.

I grant you that we obviously do not know everything that goes behind closed doors, but when we get a glimpse on those rare occasions, we see that there is trouble in paradise.

On another forum, I predicted big things for the Silver Arrows this season, it seemed like this was the perfect season to take a step forward. Keep in mind, this is not a team that started from scratch, so the idea that they need plenty of leeway is ludicrous. They bought a championship winning team, and all they needed to do was to expand upon that. I'm still waiting for that to actually happen. People continue talking about MGP as if they were built from scratch for the 2010 season, when they weren't. If they were, I would have definitely cut them more leeway, but people seem to think that just because the team name changes, everything starts from scratch. Not true when you buy a championship winning team. If they had bought into a backmarker team, it would be a different story.

[zyphro]

...

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 Mercedes AMG Petronas All-Stars.

Bob Bell thought this was an excellent idea:





Costa (Made TD in Nov 2007)

[Morteza]

Are you implying that Willis Deserves credit for the RB5 despite the fact that he worked for Adrian Newey and left the team halfway through the season, which, coincidentally, was around about the time the RB5 became dominant? If so, doesn't he also deserve credit for the RB3 and the RB4, two cars that didn't exactly set the world on fire?

Not really. I mentioned him since you named all the Mercedes' designers of now except Willis. Willis's credit for me comes from the 2004 and 2006 BAR/Honda cars. They were the best cars this exact same team (let's leave out Brawn's car for that matter) had built, really.

[zyphro]

Are you implying that Willis Deserves credit for the RB5 despite the fact that he worked for Adrian Newey and left the team halfway through the season, which, coincidentally, was around about the time the RB5 became dominant? If so, doesn't he also deserve credit for the RB3 and the RB4, two cars that didn't exactly set the world on fire?

Are you trying to saying his departure lead to Red Bull's dominance later in the 09 season? If so, you're short-sighted. Did you forget that Brawn, began down-sizing due to not having the funding? The numerous mistakes Red Bull and their drivers made (earlier in the season)?

Geoff left in July, by the end of that month Red Bull had achieved: a race win (one-two), 2nd place in Bahrain, 3rd in Spain, 1-2 in Germany and a 3rd place in Hungary.

Now add in the effects of Brawn down-sizing for the remainder of the season, and it's pretty obvious isn't it? Red Bull were always going to be dominant in the second half of the season.

[bhall]

Bob Bell thought this was an excellent idea:

[R24]

[R25]

Costa (Made TD in Nov 2007)

[F2008]

[F10]

Indeed. But, when the formula was completely overhauled and the mountains of data their respective teams had collected over the years was no longer immediately applicable...

EDIT: I'm genuinely not trying to smear anyone; Bell and Costa were integral to the design of some great cars. I'm just saying that when you look at the talent Mercedes has assembled and analyze their bodies of work, the team's current form shouldn't be all that surprising. They're a team of cast-offs, and they're showing everyone why they were cast off.

EDIT 2: And apparently Ferrari is getting a Mercedes cast-off at some point in the form of Loic Bigois. So, no one is immune.

[zyphro]

Bob Bell thought this was an excellent idea:

[R24]

[R25]

Costa (Made TD in Nov 2007)

[F2008]

[F10]

Indeed. But, when the formula was completely overhauled and the mountains of data their respective teams had collected over the years was no longer immediately applicable...

EDIT: I'm genuinely not trying to smear anyone; Bell and Costa were integral to the design of some great cars. I'm just saying that when you look at the talent Mercedes has assembled and analyze their bodies of work, the team's current form shouldn't be all that surprising. They're a team of cast-offs, and they're showing everyone why they were cast off.

Well, aren't you contradicting yourself then? You posted images of 'not-so-successful' cars, and I posted some that were.

I'm still not going to agree with the notion that: the trio cannot succeed and are 'cast-offs'. Costa and Bell have built world championship winning cars. Further, Costa and Willis were not there at the start of the development of the W03. If the W04 turns out in the same way, then serious questions would need to be asked. Furthermore, had lady-luck gone Schumacher's way, various statistics would be totally different. Missing the Jerez test (i.e not going in with the new car), was critical - the reliability was piss poor at the start of the season, and, ultimately has made the team look a lot worse than it actually is.

[bhall]

I don't think it's contradictory at all to point out instances where a designer has had both success and failure. In fact, objectivity demands it. Costa's 248F1 and F2007 were excellent cars. The F60 and 150 Italia..?

The question is: which results are more representative of the whole?

[SeijaKessen]

I don't think it's contradictory at all to point out instances where a designer has had both success and failure. In fact, objectivity demands it. Costa's 248F1 and F2007 were excellent cars. The F60 and 150 Italia..?

The question is: which results are more representative of the whole?

Well, depending on how the rest of 2012 goes, the F60 and 150 Italia may be more indicative of what their ability is as a designer.

I think it would be fair to say at this point, that Costa hasn't exactly designed a worldbeater the way Byrne did. Certainly it's difficult to maintain the sort of dominance Ferrari had 10 years ago for sustained periods of time. He may hit the jackpot at MGP, but I would lean against it right now with the way things stand.

[elf341]

What excites me about Willis is that while he may not have the creativity of Adrian Newey, he should be fairly intimate with Newey's aero philosophies: having worked as Newey's Head of Aero at Williams, and also in the early Red Bull days culminating in the Aero genius of the RB5 (which had it not been for the double diffuser, would probably have dominated from start to finish of that season). Don't forget that Willis' BAR006 beat Newey's creation in '04.

[xpensive]

I don't think that any of the three kings have a history of being gamebreakers, but obviously competent engineers no doubt.

Perhaps I've been wrong all the time, maybe three second-rates can work fine together and make three times one become four?

[marcush.]

In a "normal " season one win would have sufficed ,no question .but then it could well be sauber does hit the nail somehow somewhere this season as did williams and you can hardly claim the China win was a massive improvement over last year anymore.
The agenda will clearly be massive improvement over the two years before,so p3 in constructors is the target and the real question maybe wht happens when this will not happen.

Contrary to the common tone here -the car is not the brainchild of the new guns ,so we will only see their seed growing next year -this is just not valid to me .
Maybe youi are stuck with certain compromises and things you cannot change but still your expertise should show -instantly-
My feeling is especially the reliability issues are telling a sad story here in terms of how things are tackled.
I read the adverts last year for their recruiting campaign and it was rather obvious what is lacking in this entity when every second sentence is:the candidate must be able to instate best practise methods in his working .
Don´t get me wrong I just thought for a short time -hey after all those years they should live those best practise methods already ,no?
a formula 1 team is not a small outfit and guiding a big ship like this is not easy ..but it is not meant to be easy and only the very best do actually achieve their goals.