Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[SeijaKessen]

FoxHound is right, if Michael wanted to continue then he should sign the contract but the question is why he didn't sign at that moment? and why later he changed his mind a little but was too late because Hamilton already signed !
i'm sure if he hadn't announced retirement and Nico leave he would choose to stay for another year(because he want to be In F1 next season but there's no options)
but now we talk about Mercedes and how they treat Michael and Nico..... 3 years without any performance because car is so *!%$ but w04 will be a step forward and Lewis with Nico can fight for podiums/wins (and if Lewis scores points i'm sure media and Mercedes would blame Michael because he has a huge impact and no one would say about how bad was w03 and how many problems he had and also how team ruined his race in China where he could fight with Nico for win.
back in present I think Michael regrets a little that he announced his retirement Friday after today's race he could have an open door to Lotus

Why would Michael want to continue driving for an inept team?

MGP made a big mistake here.

Either way I am not sold on Michael being completely done driving in F1.

If he were to be on the grid in a Sauber next season, I would not be the least be surprised. I could see this retirement claim being such that he was doing it as a favor to Ross and the Hutt to keep them out of trouble. It would look really bad if Michael signed with Sauber now because the Daimler board would be asking the question of why was Hamilton signed if Michael is still available? By announcing retirement for now, then Ross and the Hutt can tell DrZ and the board that they had to make the move on Hamilton since Michael wasn't coming back.

If in the offseason he signed somewhere else, they can just use that excuse for not resigning him so they can't be blamed for anything.

[FoxHound]

@ raptor there is no contradiction. Only in your fantasy realm where you expect Schumacher to have a winning car each time he drives.
If schumacher don't wanna hang in 8th, then evidently the best place for him is retirement.
Get over it.

[Raptor22]

@ raptor there is no contradiction. Only in your fantasy realm where you expect Schumacher to have a winning car each time he drives.
If schumacher don't wanna hang in 8th, then evidently the best place for him is retirement.
Get over it.

Oh dear, now I'm fantasising...

Your statements are contradictory. decide what your position is and stick with it. Right now you're like a bar of soap and when you are cornered you get personal.

From the start of this season Schumacher has been glum. Strange how that coincided with talks with Hamilton....

[ForMuLaOne]

In the end it simply does not matter who was the main force behind schumacher`s final retirement. The only thing one can say for sure is that we cannot doubt Michaels commitment, in contrast to Mercedes`. They really were/are way too slow in what they are doing. Maybe they focussed on next year`s car, but this is what we were thinking the last two years as well. Most interesting to me: Schumacher leaves and Mercedes looks very bad in this action. Because the only argument, the only doubt-defeating fact for Schumacher to stay would have been a fast car from a good team. Who cares if a Rosberg changes or leaves a team. But if a Schumacher leaves at a point we all thought he was resigning....THAT`S a statement. I do not say this because i believe Schumacher is better than Rosberg, but i know who is more important for Formula1 or Merc. There are only few heavy-weight champions with heavy impact on the business.

[clipsy1H]

@ raptor there is no contradiction. Only in your fantasy realm where you expect Schumacher to have a winning car each time he drives.
If schumacher don't wanna hang in 8th, then evidently the best place for him is retirement.
Get over it.

8th where???

[ninogenio]

on a side note from all this because i dont think we will ever truly know the truth.

what about schumacher pass on di resta i think it was. into turn 1 that doesnt look like a guy thats running in the red zone energy wise.

[clipsy1H]

I wonder if Michael would see what we are talking here what would he think would be nice if drivers would watch this forum

[Raptor22]

In the end it simply does not matter who was the main force behind schumacher`s final retirement. The only thing one can say for sure is that we cannot doubt Michaels commitment, in contrast to Mercedes`. They really were/are way too slow in what they are doing. Maybe they focussed on next year`s car, but this is what we were thinking the last two years as well. Most interesting to me: Schumacher leaves and Mercedes looks very bad in this action. Because the only argument, the only doubt-defeating fact for Schumacher to stay would have been a fast car from a good team. Who cares if a Rosberg changes or leaves a team. But if a Schumacher leaves at a point we all thought he was resigning....THAT`S a statement. I do not say this because i believe Schumacher is better than Rosberg, but i know who is more important for Formula1 or Merc. There are only few heavy-weight champions with heavy impact on the business.

very good points

[ninogenio]

@raptor22 i second that!

i wonder if there is something going on at board level that has affected everyone in the team recently. even rosberg looked a little beaten up all weekend. there was a strange atmosphere around mercedes that i havent seen before.

[SeijaKessen]

on a side note from all this because i dont think we will ever truly know the truth.

what about schumacher pass on di resta i think it was. into turn 1 that doesnt look like a guy thats running in the red zone energy wise.

I fully expect Michael to one day write an autobiography about his time in F1. I have a feeling a lot of things are going to come to light about a great many topics.

[clipsy1H]

on a side note from all this because i dont think we will ever truly know the truth.

what about schumacher pass on di resta i think it was. into turn 1 that doesnt look like a guy thats running in the red zone energy wise.

I fully expect Michael to one day write an autobiography about his time in F1. I have a feeling a lot of things are going to come to light about a great many topics.

http://www.michael-schumacher.de/sites/en/fans/791.html what is this ?
would be great if Michael would make Twitter account ... someone needs to give Schumi the idea

[lillschumi]

I still can understand why they go for another driver, Nico is not a real benchmark and if you have the money then you want the best drivers.

What´s appauling is how it´s handled. Zetsche himself said MS or Nico is not to blame for the poor performance but the cars, why then sack the driver?. It´s like in soccer or hockey if you have proven players then you sack the coach if the team underperforms, this is the other way around if you take Zetches word.

Brawn have followed MS career closely and should know everything about his performance, he probably identified stuff which made him come to the conclusion to not prolong his contract.

I think there is one of 2 scenarios that occured:
1. being a such a daft team they might have thought that there is no way Hamilton would accept their offer, and when Perez linked to Ferrari, Vettel, Alonso staying then they thougt well we probably prolong with MS. Then when Hamilton accepted they where kind of caught unguard.
2. the negotiations with Hamilton have always been about an option for 2014, then in the final discussions then Hamilton management pushed on and said from 2013 or nothing.

So in both scenarios it kind of created some panic, so now after the deal is done many contradicions comes up because there haven´t been time to set a exit strategy sort of.

The whole thing is handled just as you might expect from this team, give it was any less driver it wouldn´t be such a big deal but because it´s about MS (with millions of fans & millions of haters) they should really have had some kind of plan how to announce this and handle it non humilitating way.

[Dragonfly]

Fry must be placed somewhere in the equation too.

[fiohaa]

i think you're all coming at it from a totally wrong angle.

This whole saga can be split into 2 things - hamiltons management, and schumachers motives.

schumachers motives: the facts are that schumacher did not want to commit to making a decision. we know from all the various official press releases that because schumacher couldnt make a decision, that led to Mercedes talking with Ham.
I think schumi clearly had an opportunity to sign earlier in the year, but he didn't - why?

i personally think its because

1. he saw no improvement in Merc over 3 years
2. this is not the F1 he once raced in and loved. It is not the flat out style racing, which was his MAIN SKILL. HIs primary skill was being able to drive at maximum attack for a race distance. This skill is now not required in F1 anymore. It took him 2 years to adjust to this new style of tyre conservation racing.
Look at todays Japanese gp, where they were all cruising around miles off the pace, even fuel adjusted.

do you really think schumi was enjoying that? this is probably why he was complaining about the tyres bitterly, earlier in the year, not once but twice making comments about the pirellis at different times. the 'raw eggs' comment etc...

Couple that to the totally neutered racing nowadays (no driving in wet weather, constant penalties, only some of which are justified) and he was probably getting tired of it. He came back because he loves racing, to push to the limit. I dont think he realised that this generation of F1 is now completely dictated by car and tyre management.

he probably has lost all interest in it, was waiting to see if Merc could improve the car in any way at all, realised they couldn't, and so didnt make any decision and just let Merc do what they want to do. If he really wanted to continue racing, he would have signed up much earlier in the year.

hamiltons management motives: it is clear that it was not Hams decision to move to Merc. It was his managements. For sure they saw an opportunity to align the brand of Ham with the global brand of Merc - it has nothing to do with Hamilton wanting to build up a team from scratch - that idea would have been planted into Hamiltons head by his management. The comments he made about his move to Merc didnt sound like Ham in the slightest - it was not him talking. He is like a puppet.

He already had a team built around him at Mclaren.......and does the Merc board really think that Ham can build up a team around him, compared to Schumi, who has a proven track record of this? Compare that to Ham, who we have seen over the years throw up tantrums constantly, and at times alienate his team with his antics.

i think its a combination of both of these motives that has led to schumi retiring and Ham moving across. I think schumi thought he had more time to decide though - that much is clear - and for that Ross Brawn totally stabbed him in the back frankly. SChumi went to the young driver test at Magny Cour - why? to see if the updates had any effect, to get feedback from the team on them most likely.

maybe he thought he had until then to decide, but Merc had already done the deal with Hamilton.

the only thing i want clarifying is timing - the timeline of events needs clarifying. Im not sure which came first - Schumi's decision to retire (in his head), or Him knowing about the dealings with Ham. Which came first?

because this is what im confused about - because schumi and his team say that he was fully involved and knew about the talks with Ham....

[mep]

Why would Michael want to continue driving for an inept team?

MGP made a big mistake here.

Either way I am not sold on Michael being completely done driving in F1.

If he were to be on the grid in a Sauber next season, I would not be the least be surprised. I could see this retirement claim being such that he was doing it as a favor to Ross and the Hutt to keep them out of trouble. It would look really bad if Michael signed with Sauber now because the Daimler board would be asking the question of why was Hamilton signed if Michael is still available? By announcing retirement for now, then Ross and the Hutt can tell DrZ and the board that they had to make the move on Hamilton since Michael wasn't coming back.

If in the offseason he signed somewhere else, they can just use that excuse for not resigning him so they can't be blamed for anything.

Maybe we can put some hope into this theory. So Schumacher might still go to Sauber but waits to announce the decision until the end of the season. This would take a lot of pressure of him because the journalists don’t annoy him now anymore since he already declared his retirement. Also for Sauber it’s no big deal to announce the drivers somewhere after the season. Plenty of average drivers want to drive there but no real talent is currently available. I saw one short interview on RTL this weekend where Schumacher said something like maybe this is his ultimate decision and gave a blink with the eye to the camera. Maybe marcush saw that as well. I don’t really know how to judge it.

However, if Schumacher goes to Sauber then it will always end up that Mercedes looks bad by this and actually one reason to go there is to prove that it was the cars fault and not the drivers. The idea of him winning another WC died long time ago. I guess the guys at Mercedes where the last ones to dream of that.