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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

 

[Brogan]

I posted last week about this but an F1 employee more or less confirmed what The Artist..... has posted above. He also suggested Ferrari were running two wind tunnels during the 3-4 week break.

Still, that's a discussion for another thread.

 

[canis]

Is not just Red Bull and Ferrari that do this, any of the teams with any sort of budget approaching the RRA cap will do the same, is all about who owns what company and which of them pays for the work...

 

[The Artist.....]

The Pits - you're absolutely correct - but it strikes me that FOTA police themselves better than the FIA can ever hope to do - so teams which breach the RRA, if they are in FOTA are more likely to be taken to task than those outside of FOTA - it's a classic case of it being easier to break the rules if you're not talking to all the other teams!)

 

[racecub]

Well today's qualifying was optimistic for Mercedes. Both of mercedes 2013 drivers were ahead of the 2013 McLaren drivers in q2 and nearly again in q3, despite Rosberg doing only one run. Very pleasing.

 

[The Pits]

Nearly, but not actually.

 

[racecub]

I think nearly is probably worrying enough for Mclaren.

 

[Brogan]

It's pointless speculating.
Brawn has already said they've gone as far as they can with this year's car so it will essentially be a redesign for next season.

That could go one of three ways: about the same, better, or worse.

 

[racecub]

Yes, I know. So much depends on how those cars emerge next year.

 

[downforce]

I hope they get the neccesary gains http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104163

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I thought I posted this last night but I must have fallen asleep on the sofa before I hit the post button. Bloody jetlag. Anyway...

QUESTION: Do Mercedes have access to thier customers engine data outputs? i.e. Do Mercedes have all of Lewis Hamilton's torque maps, gear ratios, etc. from his entire F1 career at McLaren? My guess would be that they do, although it is just a guess and I am happy to be told I am wrong. If they do, What advantage could this give them in developing a car toward their new start driver for next year?

 

[Jen]

I hope not and would think it totally immoral and underhand if they did.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I think you have completely the wrong end of the stick, Jen. It is no different from Renault looking at Vettel's engine data, as I am sure they do on a regular basis. Well, slightly different, in that Renault now don't have a Formula 1 race team, so let's say Ferrari and Sauber.

 

[Jen]

I would be appalled whoever it was. Engine suppliers should keep whatever info they have from customer teams to themselves and not pass it on to their own team.

 

[Senna's_right_foot]

ExtremeNinja - I would confidently say 'no' due to that kind of data being held on the ECU (which the teams are resonsible for, not the engine manufacturer) and also 'beamed' back to each teams garage via telemetry. Merc only supply the engines, torque/fuel/ignition maps are held on the ECU.
edit in reponse to your latest comment - Merc may have an engineer who can look at the engine data of McLarem/Force India to check wear rates etc but I doubt McLaren would let them near any of the actual ECU maps.

 

[The Pits]

I think that the teams would work with the engine supplier to define engine maps, and when to use them. They would probably also know about gear ratios etc

I would hazard that this would be useful, but limited, as it would be dependent on so many other factors relating to the set up and nature of the car.

I would also suggest that there may be some description of non disclosure agreement, meaning that engine data remains confidential, and not passed on to other race teams, otherwise, it could be construed as passing on IP not belonging. The nature of the contracts I am not aware of, but I would think there would be something in there to prevent one team gaining from another teams thinking.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Vettel's retirement last weekend was under instruction from Renault rather than from Red Bull. We also often hear Red Bull talking of discussions with Reanault to understand why the engine behaved in a particular way.

The Pits makes a good point, though, in that the race team and the engine supply team may be two completely different entities.

 

[The Artist.....]

Ross Brawn and Norbert Haug have been making a big thing recently about Mercedes moving from 50% to 60% wind tunnel models:

"This is also because we've gone through deep restructuring, especially in the aerodynamics sector, also by moving from 50 per cent scale models to 60 per cent, which requires different technologies.

Could this be at least part of the reason that they're having such problems? Ferrari have well documented problems as they are running their previously 50% wind tunnel with 60% models - leading to problems with the air bouncing off the walls of the wind tunnel causing mis-leading results. Personally, I wouldn't be overly surprised to hear that Mercedes have the same problem, but have not had the level of resources to take advantage of other peoples' wind tunnels!

 

[racecub]

So will the wind tunnel be nicely sorted out for next year? rather a slump sorting it out now than then.

 

[The Artist.....]

... the problem with wind tunnels is that you can often work out that you have a problem, but it isn't always obvious how to solve it! Certainly a lot of Honda's problems related to the fact that their wind tunnel was so badly calibrated....

 

[racecub]

Maybe that's why Brawn is changing to a new one..........though that Honda one must have been working ok end of 2008/beginning 2009.