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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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.

 

[teabagyokel]

I wonder if Ferrari are just more confident in their winning at FIA litigation.

 

[P1]

Given the large number of engineers that are changing teams in F1, including moving from Ferrari to Mercedes, this strikes me as hipocracy. Any time an engineer moves to a different employer, he, almost by definition, takes "intellectual property" with him, unless he has been working in an information vacuum, which is extremely unlikely as each engineer's product must interact flawlessly with products from other engineers.

Yeah I think there is a difference between taking IP in your head, and what this guy did which is to hack databases and print documents even after he had his original laptop taken away and was reassigned to another department.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

More details have emerged.
Analysis: Mercedes vs. Ben Hoyle – a new Spygate?

 

[cider_and_toast]

I think Mr Hoyle is in the smelly stuff, hip deep and sinking fast.

I also love the way that Ferrari are trying to distance themselves as rapidly as possible "there was a discussion, err... nothing fixed....err it came to nothing.....uhm....nothing to see here !! "

 

[Titch]

He's a very careless spy though. Letting a colleague see you spying, is beyond stupid, and was bound to lead to Ferrari backing off at a million miles an hour.

 

[Bill Boddy]

As stupid as taking documents clearly headed "Ferrari" to the local photocopying shop by the wife of a McLaren employee?

 

[teabagyokel]

I think it is equally stupid. I think Ron's failure to add photocopiers to the Subterranean Covert Department (officially Tertiary Biomaton Recreation Room) was perhaps stupider.

 

[FB]

Stupid headline but it does maybe suggest there are some underlying problems at Mercedes.

F1: Mercedes To Fire Lewis Hamilton?

 

[Grizzly]

On new pit-to-car radio rules, Toto said:

What I like is that it is the driver who will be taking decisions, and not remote controlled from the garage

Isn't that the exact opposite of what you strategically used to defend Mercedes strategic strategy strategies last year Toto?

 

[Grizzly]

Ooop there it is

If the driver in the car starts to determine strategy then he is going to lose every single race because that is not an instinct-driven decision.

 

[racecub]

This is music to my ears! I hope it's true and significant changes are afoot in the way Mercedes allow the drivers more say to develop their own strategies and decide how the race will play out .

Mercedes eases team orders on Hamilton and Rosberg for F1 2016

I wondered last week if things were moving in that direction when the drivers tyre choices for the first race were revealed. Lewis only has one set of mediums , Rosberg has two. Of the top end of the gird teams, the Merc drivers are the only ones to differ on tyre choice. If they have different tyres available to them then Merc can't put them on identical strategies. The article above seems to suggest Merc and loosening up on this.

 

[Bill Boddy]

.... If they have different tyres available to them then Merc can't put them on identical strategies. ....

Since they don't have to use all the tyres available the drivers can be put on the same strategies.

 

[racecub]

Since they don't have to use all the tyres available the drivers can be put on the same strategies.

That's true. But it gives them less scope for identical strategies. And Merc have said they're giving more leeway to the drivers. They have to give back tyres I believe? After each session? So it depends what they're left with for the race,

 

[Hamberg]

I'd put money on this being bollocks.

 

[siffert_fan]

I'm confused.

For the last two years, Mercedes has been claiming that the two drivers have been free to race each other. Now they are saying that they are easing restrictions on them. Doesn't the latter statement indicate that the former was bovine excrement?

 

[Hamberg]

Yes. Which is why one might conclude the current statement is of equal value.

 

[racecub]

I'm confused.

For the last two years, Mercedes has been claiming that the two drivers have been free to race each other. Now they are saying that they are easing restrictions on them. Doesn't the latter statement indicate that the former was bovine excrement?

Yes it probably does. They were Free to race under Mercedes conditions, and you saw what that meant. They weren't really free to race, free to qualify and that was about it, Mercedes called the tune, chose the strategies, planned the race. And then they could race.
Now they're saying they're easing up on the amount of control they excercise, leaving more up to the driver. Well we'll have to see if they do. They'll have to anyway to a certain extent because of the pit to car rules. And drivers get to choose tyres and the Merc drivers have chosen differently. So we can but hope.
A little more on the 'loosening up'.
F1 2016: Mercedes vow to let Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg fight

 

[RasputinLives]

So if they were cow pooing us about them being free to race last time why should we believe they are not cow pooing us now?

Will all be academic if Ferrari are on pace anyways as Mercy will favor Hamilton in order to stay ahead of Vettel.

 

[marksawatsky]

Do you think the different tire strategies in Australia was choice of the team or the drivers? Didn't Lewis have harder tires chosen? Does that mean he plans on pushing harder?

 

[RasputinLives]

I think it's hard to tell at this stage. Would love it to be Lewis choice and he has a plan but it could equally be the team hedging it's bets on which the best tyre is and splitting the strategy to make sure at least one of their cars will be right.

Will have all be talked through with the team strategist anyways. Who is that for Merc these days?