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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

 

[Il_leone]

I think Mercedes are not Ferrari to be honest who are the only team I ve known to overturn an appeal

This actually puts the spotlight back on Masi and the FIA to do something

They should use that anger towards next season and trounce everyone they have a better chance with Hamilton and Russell

Mercedes just withdrew their appeal.

Beyond disgusted.

The only acceptable outcome will be Masi is sacked then because Mercedes have accepted that the FIA will conduct an internal analysis of the situation
To me that means the rules about the lapped cars need to be changed

 

[Brogan]

This actually puts the spotlight back on Masi and the FIA to do something

Never going to happen.

They'll come out with some bullshit about changing procedures, fairness, blah blah.

The only acceptable outcome will be Masi is sacked

The FIA won't do that because it will be an admission of guilt.

What little interest I had left in F1 is gone for good.

 

[Johnny Carwash]

It feels like I’m going through a breakup with how I feel about F1 at the moment.

 

[Il_leone]

Never going to happen.

They'll come out with some bullshit about changing procedures, fairness, blah blah.


The FIA won't do that because it will be an admission of guilt.

What little interest I had left in F1 is gone for good.

Mercedes last statement hold the FIA accountable someone will take the fall for this and it has to be Masi who will be under serious scrutiny if he does another cock up

I am sure Mercedes are seething but this should be used as motivation they really want to beat Red Bull I am sure they will because I think they've got all the tools to do it.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Mercedes are the only team out of the three dominant periods who didn't (openly at least) deliberately disadvantage their second driver.

Once Botas was brought in there was no need to have team orders.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Once Botas was brought in there was no need to have team orders.

He won a surprising amount of races and poles if that was the case then.

So, to repeat my earlier question, it's only Mercedes run of wins you thought was bad for the sport and you dislike then?

 

[Brogan]

It's just a part of Mercedes.

 

[FB]

Are we sure Red Bull disadvantaged Webber? In "How to build a racing car" Adrian Newey goes into the events at Silverstone the weekend of "not bad for a No.2", and both he and the team were upset at Webber's comments as he was never deliberately disadvantaged. The new front wing (I think that's what it was) was tried by Mark during one of the practice sessions and he said he didn't want to use it. The next thing is he's bleating about how Vettel gets all the upgrades at his expense which took the team by surprise. Simple fact is he wasn't as good as Vettel, much as Rosberg and Bottas are not as good as Hamilton. Verstappen has yet to have a driver how can challenge him. Barrichello was not as good as Button or Schumacher. Massa was not as good as Raikkonen or Schumacher, etc, etc., in fact he was told at one race "Fernando is faster than you"!

What I would say is that the team will build a car which bests suits their fastest driver and it will be developed to enhance the advantages that driver prefers. Tyrrell built cars which suited JYS, the Lotus 79 suited Mario Andretti, the Williams FW07 was developed to suit Alan Jones, etc, etc.

 

[Bill Boddy]

it's only Mercedes run of wins you thought was bad for the sport and you dislike then?

Not altogether, the FIA is a large part of it.

The FIA decided that they were being beginning to look some way of moving to electric cars which were being to be the coming thing. Mercedes seemed to be just the thing as they were already moving that way for their road cars. So they both decided that they went ahead.

Mercedes went ahead an engine which was using leading edge technology which was going to use features which were foreign to petrol engineers. So Mercedes had a big advantage.

Ross Brawn has a car which was going cheap as he did not have the resources needed.

Put all these together and you have a car which would take years to catch up with. Indeed fairly recently it was admitted that in the first two years Mercedes had to throttle the engines to prevent runaway victories in every race, lapping the field.

The FIA had been bamboozled into existing engine builders having to spending a king's ransom just to keep up.

 

[cider_and_toast]

So in short, you have no problems with Ferrari winning five in a row and Red Bull winning four in a row but you really don't like Mercedes.

Got it.

 

[Brogan]

I blame Mercedes for having a veto over what other teams can do.

Oh wait ...

 

[Speshal]

Hardly unexpected tho Brogan

I see a few Mercedes "friendly" decisions next year.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Hardly unexpected tho Brogan

I see a few Mercedes "friendly" decisions next year.

I hope not.

It's not about quid-pro-quo it's about following their own regulations.

 

[vintly]

Indeed fairly recently it was admitted that in the first two years Mercedes had to throttle the engines to prevent runaway victories in every race,

Really? This may be common knowledge amongst CTA reg’lars but it’s news to me. Link?

 

[The Artist.....]

vintly - there's an article here. It was for this reason that Mercedes virtually never had engine penalties until they started being pushed by Ferrari.

Fear of rules change led Mercedes to run dominant 2014 engine in "idle mode"

Mercedes' former technical director has revealed the lengths the team went to disguise the scale of their superiority at the beginning of the V6 hybrid turbo engine era.

www.racefans.net

 

[F1Brits_90]

we are very presumptions on next years rules that the same cars will be competing next year. as the last time we such a big rule change in 2009 it was the teams that finished 7th & 9th competed for following years title. then Red Bull took 7yrs to fight for a title. these next rule changes are as big as 1998

 

[The Artist.....]

F1Brits_90 - there's something been nagging about this with me - as Mercedes and Red Bull have been really pushing themselves hard to try to win the championship... I shouldn't be surprised if Red Bull find themselves lagging a long way behind.

There will almost certainly be a surprise team (McLaren?) - although Mercedes didn't develop as much from 2020-2021, so they may have had some resource working away in the background to develop a good car to hit the ground running.

 

[FB]

Gentlemen, a thread for you to discuss such matters - Pre-Season - F1 2022

 

[Bill Boddy]

you have no problems with Ferrari winning five in a row and Red Bull winning four in a row but you really don't like Mercedes

Where did you get that from?

Certainly not from here on the Ferrari front since this forum did not exist ; as it happens I worked with an F1 fan for most of that time and we were both pissed of with the Brawn/Todt cars for their cheating and the Ferrari rule manipulation.

As far as Red Bull I was certainly not a fan as it was clear that they were too fast on the first lap to be true. I also remember saying to Keewee (sp?), a well known Vettel fan, that we could not judge him until we had seen how he would fare against outside a non-winning car and a competitive driver.

 

[cider_and_toast]

That's all I asked.

I got it from the fact that when I asked for clarification as you were attacking Mercedes for their run if wins if you felt the same about Ferrari and Red Bull.

In much the same way you speculated that those who were angry about the way Masi dealt with the climax of the Abu Dhabi GP would not be making the same level of protest had Hamilton gone on to win.

So, when I asked you to clarify your position around winning runs by other teams, your response was to once again state your anti Mercedes sentiments and ignore the Ferrari and Red Bull bit.

Now you have clarified your position on all three in exactly the same way I clearly stated I would be furious with the FIA / Masi had their actions been the same but the drivers reversed.

Now we know where we both stand.