Current Mercedes

Mercedes GP

FIA Entry: Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Team
Car 7: Michael Schumacher
Car 8: Nico Rosberg
Engine: Mercedes V8
Team Principal: Ross Brawn
Technical Director: Bob Bell
Race Engineer Car 7: Mark Slade
Race Engineer Car 8: Tony Ross

Stats as of end 2010

First Entered 2010
Races Entered 19
Race Wins 0
Pole Positions 0
Fastest Laps 0
Driver World Championships 0
Constructor World Championships 0

Team History

The Mercedes team history splits into two parts. In 1954 the famous pre-war Silver Arrows entered the F1 world championship and recorded a 1-2 at their first race. Fangio went on to win the drivers championship that year and again in 1955. Mercedes withdrew at the end of the 1955 season after the accident which killed 80 spectators at Le Mans which involved one of their cars.

The current team entered F1 in 2010 after Mercedes bought Brawn Grand Prix. Brawn Grand Prix, winners of the Drivers Championship, with Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.

Prior to the Honda takeover in 2006 the team had raced under the name of British America racing which had acquired the assets and race entry of the Tyrrell F1 team in 1999. BAR competed in 118 races without a single victory. The high points for the team were 2 pole positions (both for Button – San Marino 2004 and Canada 2005) and 2nd in the constructors championship in 2004.

Tyrrell were amongst the most successful private F1 teams taking part in 463 Grands Prix, scoring 33 victories and 3 Drivers Championships, all with Jackie Stewart.

2010

Having replaced Button and Barrichello with Nico Rosberg and 7 times WDC Michael Schumacher many expected great things of the new Mercedes team in 2010 but they had an indifferent season.

Rosberg managed 3 podiums for the team but Schumacher, coming back from retirement, struggled with the new cars, tyres and limited testing under the revised regulations. The team finished 4th in the Constructors Championship.

2011

For 2011 Mercedes retain the same driver line up and are hoping for better things from their MGP W02 chassis.

 

[RasputinLives]

I'd have thought Nico would have waited to see how things played out too.

 

[Road of Bones]

Where else would he go for a title-winning car? I think the timing of the announcement is just as Jen suggests - a way of keeping him on-board and boost his spirits a bit in the face of the Hamilton Steamroller.

 

[racecub]

Could also be to quell the talk of Alonso being courted by Merc following the somewhat thoughtless comments by Zetsche about Alonso being "maybe the best driver in F1"

 

[RasputinLives]

Could they have drawn a contract up and got it signed in 2 days?

 

[racecub]

No, but if the contract was ready but they were holding fire for a while, maybe it pushed them into going for it. Just speculation on my part here. I'm really glad they've signed Nico for another year.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I'm actually a bit glad we can put the "perfect season" speculation to bed, which was never really a possibility under these completely new regulations if you asked me.

Maybe a little troubling for Merc that the hot temperatures seem to have hampered them quite a bit as we're heading towards the summer.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Yes, Abu Dhabi can be hot as well...

 

[RasputinLives]

I'm actually a bit glad we can put the "perfect season" speculation to bed

Why are you talking about Max Chilton's finishing record on the merc thread?

Poor old Max.

 

[teabagyokel]

KekeTheKing - Given that the problem manifested on the same lap in both cars, it must be somewhat predictable given certain conditions.

 

[KekeTheKing]

It should certainly help diagnose the problem. I'm sure Lauda will be piloting the chassis on a rolling road in Austria any day now...

 

[FB]

Apparently this tweet was deleted.

 

[Jen]

I'd heard that Mercedes PR were in super mode!

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Lauda is pissed because the corner named after him was renamed for sponsorship money. I wonder if there's anything in that.

 

[Fenderman]

"Nico Rosberg and the entire MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS formula one team ..."

Hmm... ... I wonder if that has something to do with the tweet being deleted? A fan for the conspiracy theorists fire if ever there was one.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Erm, wasn't Rosberg the driver who won the race? Would it not be normal to feature the winner rather than the second place (first of the losers?) driver?

 

[Fenderman]

It might have been somewhat more tactful to say something like , "Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and their entire MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS formula one team ..."

or

"our Austria GP race winner Nico Rosberg and the entire MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS formula one team ..."

In this age of PR speak that wasn't hard

Edit: Obviously someone at Mercedes had a concern. It would be interesting to know who, and probably quite entertaining as well.

 

[RasputinLives]

I think the concern may have been that it looked like a massive dig at Red Bull rather than anything to do with Lewis Hamilton.

 

[Jen]

I believe that was what was intended.

 

[Fenderman]

What could possibly be wrong with a sly jape at the competition whilst simultaneously congratulating them? Did or would someone in Merc's PR dept worry that Red Bull lack a sense of humour?

... or did someone notice that someone like Fender's would pick up on the wording and rekindle the "Merc' does have a number one twitter scrap" thence inflaming intrateam relationships?

My apologies for allowing folk's to take my posts seriously. It seems I need to use more than smileys ...

 

[KekeTheKing]

What about trademark infringement? Is the term "Gives you Wings" under any restrictions?

I think it's quite funny and it doesn't make sense to delete it at this point, in fact the deletion probably calls more attention to it, no? Once something is out in cyberspace it tends to hang around a while.