Trying to do a Honda, and stumble across a winner. Can't see it working to be honest. Mercedes' ambitions don't match their ability both in terms of drivers and technical staff
I'd definitely agree with you about the technical staff. Clearly, Ferrari, Mclaren & Red Bull have the infrastructure to produce good cars year after year (admittedly with a few exceptions!). Mercedes aren't quite there yet and they need to get it right in order to compete. We saw in 2009, in the guise of Brawn GP, that even though they had a great car, they couldn't maintain their progress through the year and their updates were detrimental to the cars performance more often than not. I wonder if we'll see Sam Michael there next year?
That is a good point. However, it wasn't so much the lack of upgrades that was the problem, more the quality of said upgrades and how they made the car worse. However, I'm sure that they were partially the result of finance as well as from technical guidance.
Yeah, i suppose Ferrari's and Mclaren's clearly improved the car. Red Bull also did a good job of improving
Mercedes has F1 history, they won't just give up after a few years. They're in for the long run, knowing it will take 3-5 years for the team to fully work. I know this because I went past the Mercedes GP base in 2010 at Silverstone, seeing them advancing the entire base. Norbert and Brawn will get the team working well and the start of it was slapping a multi year deal for Nico's services, he's a good driver and I'm suprised it took this long for everybody to see the kids got serious talent, which he still hasn't been able to show yet. The car is close to the Ferrari, it's just the tyre preservation is a problem, when that's sorted you'll see the qualifying pace being transferred to race pace, you'll see.
It isn't as close to the Ferrari as you think I reckon. Ferrari have gone forwards over the last couple of races, towards the other 2, away from Mercedes.
Didn't they stop working on the MGP-W01 mid-season in order to have more time to develop the MGP-W02? As others have mentioned, they are lacking in technical staff, and I don't see them doing much better in 2012 to be honest.
Mercedes has been suffering with little faults on the car all season: rapid tyre wear, blistering, engine consuming too much fuel...etc The car is good but it's not "refined good" with everything surrounding it.
That's all part of the car being good though. Tyre wear, is due to suspension design, obviously not too forgiving. Engine consumption, Mclaren aren't having the problem, and they have the same engine, so Mercedes are obviously having to run higher engine modes to keep up
They got Bob Bell, the man behind Alonso's 05,06 titles. I think this year is unfair to judge the future for the team since they hired more people on the 2010 season, it needs time to gel and improve. The money is being spent on the whole team and it's starting to show IMO. Mercedes arn't getting worse, it's just the front runners have increased the gap and midfielders have made a bigger gains, why? It's because their teams are the finished article while Mercedes is still tweaking everywhere.
Mercedes isn't exactly a new team though is it? It was Honda, then Brawn, now Mercedes, it's been around for a while, so they'll have alot of the core stuff in place surely? And alot of the staff are still Honda guys, so it's not as if they've got many more excuses left
The whole foundation is being stripped from the bottom to top. You saw in 2009 that Ross Brawn had to sack a ton of people for them to last the whole season. Yes probably the good people are still there, but not around 80% of them. Back to the tyres, we both know it's more than just springs why it did that, if it was that easy to think up we would all be working in F1. There are about 20 to 30 things on that car which will help cause the problem, including the weight distribution and aero. If it was just the springs giving them hassle tyre wise for the start of the season they would of been able to sort it out after the first race. Reagarding fuel problems, it was underfueling that screwed with Nico, not fuel problems as a whole. Was thinking of the Ferrari last year.
It's Schumacher's final season next year, isn't it? It wouldn't do for the fairytale to end in the ignominy in which it's unravelled so far. Having built another dud they have to have one more shot at giving him something positive before he's gone forever. I don't think 2012 will be any better either. This team has a long pedigree in building rotten cars and whatever has them convinced that throwing everything away and starting from scratch yet again is going to work out any differently this time is a mystery. I'm sure they think they understand what they got wrong with the MGP-W02, just like I'm sure they think they understood last year what they'd got wrong with the MGP-W01.
Don't you think it is actually unfair on Michael Schumacher that he has been provided with a piece of a **** of a car for two years now. It's halfway through his comeback career, and change needs to occur now not later.
Its incredibly early in the season to just give up, especially since next years car may be a one off if 2013 does indeed bring in massive rule changes
Is it the car or the drivers, I am not convinced the car is the real problem, in absolute truth and this could upset one or two, Schumacher is not up to the job and Rosberg is not in the top five drivers on the grid, so how the hell can Mercedes expect to make progress beyond where they are !
The WO1 was never designed for Schumacher or Nico that year, it was the end product of the Brawn so it was designed for Jenson. The WO2 is the first REAL! Mercedes designed car and it's one of the boldest creations around IMO. There will be bugs and gremlins to fix down the line, but thats what you expect when the whole team is being changed, they will make more mistakes than the top 3 would. With all the problems it has it still gets stuck in with the likes of Sauber, Renault and Ferrari time to time. Nico was up behind Webbers backside at the start of Monaco and said on his video blog before his tyres faded away he was aiming to overtake Mark reckoning he had a faster car. After 8 laps Nico's tyres were already over the cliff, Schumi's a few laps after, losing a possible 7-10 laps of supersoft times. After this happend the car was a sitting duck, even a Red Bull would of been the same. This is why I say the Mercedes isn't a hunk of crap, the foundation is good enough to challenge the podium it's just the degradation of the tyres which screw up the race for them. When and not a matter of "IF" they sort it out you'll see Nico and Schumi close the gap considerably because they can start adding the upgrades. I also find it funny people regarding Nico's skill. Only a year ago people were saying he had no chance against Schumacher and he was going to get whooped. Again this year, the same has been said but nothing has changed Nico is still the faster driver. (Late than never) Lewis regards Nico as his top 3 rivals and soon enough after that, people start putting him in the top 5 overnight (turncoats). I respect people's opinion and sticking to it regarding Nico's standing, if they want to underrate him, GOOD! the sooner he gets a title contending car or teams up with Lewis, Vettel the sooner we can be prooved wrong or right. Other than that, where's the proof he can't match and beat the best?
