Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Kingshark
Kingshark
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 05:41

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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So... does anyone think that the other teams will close the gap by Hungary?

Sarcasm aside, Mercedes's development rate thus far this season has been extremely impressive. They look even more imperious than Red Bull did at the end of last year.

Week in and week out, the car is constantly on average ~1 second faster than the nearest opposition. They struggled in Austria with the soft tyres, high temperatures, and the stop-and-go nature of the circuit; yet still got a 1-2 finish. In Silverstone, on hard tyres and in colder conditions, they were ~2 seconds faster than the rest of the field.

Incredible really. Hats off to Brackley, I didn't think they'd have it in them.

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FoxHound
55
Joined: 23 Aug 2012, 16:50

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Kingshark wrote:Incredible really. Hats off to Brackley, I didn't think they'd have it in them.
A few posters here not only doubted the team, but also made a point of ridiculing them.
Sharpening pens on teams and people is easy, but if we look at what McLaren are going through... Mercedes did not suffer any worse. Yet, the flak received was disproportionate.

Have a read through the old Merc team threads if you'd like an example..... :twisted:
JET set

Kingshark
Kingshark
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 05:41

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Damn, Niki Lauda is not holding back:
http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/938 ... en-Ferrari

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Thunder
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Joined: 06 Feb 2013, 09:50
Location: Germany

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Nothing but the typical Marko / Lauda BS honestly. I tend to Ignore both of them when i can.
turbof1 wrote: YOU SHALL NOT......STALLLLL!!!
#aerogollum

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Racer X
8
Joined: 21 Apr 2013, 19:04

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Nico Ross i honestly hope he becomes Champion because next year with all the teams bringing stronger engines we might see Ferrari overtake the competition or Renault or even Honda. who knows..... My point about Ross is that with a tighter competition Ross might mis his chance to be world champion think Jenson Button on this... what if this is it like Massa and if he doesnt become champion here this year he might never. So i hope he can beat Hamilton besides Lewis is already a Champion. So i hope Nico wins...
RedBull Racing Checo//PEREZ

Kingshark
Kingshark
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Joined: 26 May 2014, 05:41

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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I'm confused, are you talking about Nico Rosberg or Ross Brawn?

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Pierce89
60
Joined: 21 Oct 2009, 18:38

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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FoxHound wrote:
Kingshark wrote:Incredible really. Hats off to Brackley, I didn't think they'd have it in them.
A few posters here not only doubted the team, but also made a point of ridiculing them.
Sharpening pens on teams and people is easy, but if we look at what McLaren are going through... Mercedes did not suffer any worse. Yet, the flak received was disproportionate.

Have a read through the old Merc team threads if you'd like an example..... :twisted:
To be fair, Norbert Haug and Shumi were the target of most of the ridicule.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970

“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher

prince
prince
6
Joined: 01 Mar 2012, 11:22

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Racer X wrote:Nico Ross i honestly hope he becomes Champion because next year with all the teams bringing stronger engines we might see Ferrari overtake the competition or Renault or even Honda. who knows..... My point about Ross is that with a tighter competition Ross might mis his chance to be world champion think Jenson Button on this... what if this is it like Massa and if he doesnt become champion here this year he might never. So i hope he can beat Hamilton besides Lewis is already a Champion. So i hope Nico wins...
So you are insisting that, Nico is not good enough to face tough challenges from outside the team to win a championship and so he should win this year in a charitable way.

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FoxHound
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Joined: 23 Aug 2012, 16:50

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Unfairly so too, Pierce.

Haug's move to purchase the team and it's subsequent decline was held against him, and ultimately cost the man his job.
Looking back, it was a masterclass by Haug.
Mercedes always yearned to have their own team, hence the abortive attempts to purchase McLaren.
The £100 million spent to buy the team now looks a complete bargain when you consider to build a factory from scratch, will cost in excess of £300 million, and that's 2004 money. You then have to staff your empty factory....

Schumacher too, came in for alot of flak, but when you see how Rosberg has performed against Hamilton...the old man did good, real good. Just a case of the car not being competitive enough. Schumacher also played the sacrificial lamb on a few occasions for the team, trying new engine maps for the EBD and also different set ups to improve the teams woeful tyre problems. Commendable.

But I think Brawn bore the brunt of venom on these pages. While Haug may have got Mercedes into the sport, Brawn was helming the ship.
It was the shedding of staff back in 2008/9 that did for the team. Losing the likes of Zander and others who were so instrumental in making the BGP001 had a knock on effect to the development of the subsequent W range Mercs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... staff.html

270 staff let go in the space of 3/4 months, and a budget which dropped from £210 million to around half that.
No team in F1 could really maintain a development rate or continuity with this sort of disturbance.

It was however sold to Merc under the RRA guise, that all teams would need to meet the 500 maximum number of staff by 2011/12. Mercedes already operated on that basis.
Only when it became clear that the RRA was not being respected, or that clear advantages would be frozen in due to it, Brawn went on his now famous recruitment drive to get the like of Bell, Costa and Willis to turn the ship around.
In the meantime the old guard where being shipped out...Bigois to Ferrari etc.

In this transition, the team struggled which is only normal. But Brawn was singled out as the man responsible, yet in 2013 under stable regs from 2009...the team clearly leapfrogged McLaren and Ferrari by being the second best team.
That does not happen out of nothing, and is clearly also not because of the engine(frozen regs).
All of it is a culmination of Brawn's decision making, even if he is not the greatest engineer that ever lived.

Enter the W05.
This more than anything is cumulative work put in by Brawn, his team and Mercedes. The hashtags on the side of the cars for Micheal are nice touch...but underneath that...they should have #DankeRoss.
JET set

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SectorOne
166
Joined: 26 May 2013, 09:51

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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Mercedes motorsport bosses Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe have both suffered injuries during a team building exercise on Tuesday. The pair were involved in a cycling crash in the Austrian capital, Vienna. Whilst technical chief Lowe escaped with cuts and bruises, Wolff was admitted to hospital overnight for treatment to a broken wrist, elbow, shoulder and collarbone. The Mercedes team reports they're both in "good spirits" and aren't expected to miss this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix. -

See more at: http://www.f1times.co.uk/news/display/0 ... nuvpF.dpuf
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother that person is a piece of sh*t"

astracrazy
astracrazy
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Joined: 04 Mar 2009, 16:04

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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good post foxhound. You also forgot about the master stroke from Ross with the tyre test last year, Paddy or Toto wouldn't have the balls to pull such a stunt.

As you say there were many fool guys leading up to this year who really deserve some credit now (even though it didn't look the case at the time).

I think Ross was the biggest of them all and i doubt we know the real reason why he left because the timing didn't make sense.

I fear Paddy, Toto and Nikki will take the glory at the end of this season, when in reality its far from the case and its likely Ross won't even be mentioned.

NewtonMeter
NewtonMeter
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Joined: 24 Jun 2010, 21:48
Location: Pretoria, South Africa

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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astracrazy wrote:good post foxhound. You also forgot about the master stroke from Ross with the tyre test last year, Paddy or Toto wouldn't have the balls to pull such a stunt.

As you say there were many fool guys leading up to this year who really deserve some credit now (even though it didn't look the case at the time).

I think Ross was the biggest of them all and i doubt we know the real reason why he left because the timing didn't make sense.

I fear Paddy, Toto and Nikki will take the glory at the end of this season, when in reality its far from the case and its likely Ross won't even be mentioned.
Firstly, an epic post by Foxhound. You distilled my opinions into it's purest form and made a very fine whiskey of it. =D>

Secondly, I mostly agree with the post of astracrazy apart from the bolded part. From what I can tell, the likes of Paddy, Toto, Niki and pretty much everyone (bar Roscoe, the bastard) have given full credit to Ross from the very first race. I'm willing to take any bet that they will again when they've won the championships. They've been very sincere about giving him credit.
Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool...

elf341
elf341
5
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 19:31

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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I'm not massively worried about the fact that Paddy and Toto will take the credit. The serious history books, (e.g. Piola's guides) I expect will credit Aldo Costa and Ross Brawn with what is looking like the most dominant F1 car in history.

Ross Brawn himself is probably very happy to be leaving on a high knowing that the W05 was the culmination of his work in F1.

I've changed my opinion of Toto massively since he first came onto the scene, at first I thought he was just trying to make a power play and stamp his authority by bringing in Paddy to screw up the Brawn-Bell set-up. Now I think he truly wants the best and took Paddy at the time as it was the best thing he could do with the information that he had. As the W04 turned out to be a qualifying beast and race winner he started to see how valuable Brawn was (link), and then as W05's dominance became evident he tried to pursuade Brawn to come back in some role with the team and has apparently also tried to get Brawn to come along in an unofficial capacity to check how their processes are going in the new regime (link).

I'm a bit sad that we didn't see Bob Bell up on the podium before he left, we've also not seen Geoff Willis. Maybe these guys just don't like the limelight.

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Pierce89
60
Joined: 21 Oct 2009, 18:38

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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FoxHound wrote:Unfairly so too, Pierce.

Haug's move to purchase the team and it's subsequent decline was held against him, and ultimately cost the man his job.
Looking back, it was a masterclass by Haug.
Mercedes always yearned to have their own team, hence the abortive attempts to purchase McLaren.
The £100 million spent to buy the team now looks a complete bargain when you consider to build a factory from scratch, will cost in excess of £300 million, and that's 2004 money. You then have to staff your empty factory....

Schumacher too, came in for alot of flak, but when you see how Rosberg has performed against Hamilton...the old man did good, real good. Just a case of the car not being competitive enough. Schumacher also played the sacrificial lamb on a few occasions for the team, trying new engine maps for the EBD and also different set ups to improve the teams woeful tyre problems. Commendable.

But I think Brawn bore the brunt of venom on these pages. While Haug may have got Mercedes into the sport, Brawn was helming the ship.
It was the shedding of staff back in 2008/9 that did for the team. Losing the likes of Zander and others who were so instrumental in making the BGP001 had a knock on effect to the development of the subsequent W range Mercs.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... staff.html

270 staff let go in the space of 3/4 months, and a budget which dropped from £210 million to around half that.
No team in F1 could really maintain a development rate or continuity with this sort of disturbance.

It was however sold to Merc under the RRA guise, that all teams would need to meet the 500 maximum number of staff by 2011/12. Mercedes already operated on that basis.
Only when it became clear that the RRA was not being respected, or that clear advantages would be frozen in due to it, Brawn went on his now famous recruitment drive to get the like of Bell, Costa and Willis to turn the ship around.
In the meantime the old guard where being shipped out...Bigois to Ferrari etc.

In this transition, the team struggled which is only normal. But Brawn was singled out as the man responsible, yet in 2013 under stable regs from 2009...the team clearly leapfrogged McLaren and Ferrari by being the second best team.
That does not happen out of nothing, and is clearly also not because of the engine(frozen regs).
All of it is a culmination of Brawn's decision making, even if he is not the greatest engineer that ever lived.

Enter the W05.
This more than anything is cumulative work put in by Brawn, his team and Mercedes. The hashtags on the side of the cars for Micheal are nice touch...but underneath that...they should have #DankeRoss.
I agree with most of what you said. The only caveat would be that last year Merc really only jumped Ferrari, when, in the middle of the season, Pirelli fixed their main issue for them. If changing to tougher tires wasn't enough, they let Merc have a private test in a 2013 car, when we ALL knew the regs didn't allow a current car. Regardless of which tires were tested, you will not convince me Merc didn't learn a trick or two that they could apply to virtually and modern Pirelli f1 tire.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970

“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher

bhall II
bhall II
477
Joined: 19 Jun 2014, 20:15

Re: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

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I'll readily admit to experiencing a certain amount of schadenfreude over the last few years as Mercedes struggled and repeatedly said their goal was 2014, because those claims sounded like lip service every single time. (As a Ferrari fan, you sorta grow accustomed to, if not jaded by, empty promises and unfulfilled "potential.")

But, damn, it's quite obvious Brackley wasn't bullshitting. At all. They've played the rules just about as well as they can possibly be played.