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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

The last linguistic links with the Brawn GP team are expunged, and a the obvious AMG link made. Still one heck of a mouthful of a name, though it looks as though they'll be mainly referring to themselves as "Mercedes AMG Petronas" in most instances. I wonder what future this bodes for the M-B HPE (née Ilmor) engine works in Brixworth, as AMG are doing a good job of supplying F3 engines for the Euroseries. Probably nothing, but there may be some "rationalisation" in the pipeline.
 
F3 engines used to be largely production-based; not sure if that's still the case, but whatever, I don't see the sense in relocating the F1 engine factory to Germany, when there is patently nothing wrong with the product coming out of Brixworth, and all the human capital is in England?

And their F1 teams, for that matter!
 
I wasn't drawing any conclusion either way, just musing in text. It may be that the F3 engine production gets moved to Brixworth, or that both units are brought under a single AMG banner, or that nothing happens at all. The Brixworth operation has simultaneously been renamed "Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains". My point there is that "Mercedes AMG" would seem to be the branding paradigm of choice at the moment. Perhaps the engines might be called "AMG"s this year, making the full constructor make "Mercedes AMG". To change the chassis name requires unanimous consent from the other F1 teams, but to change your engine designation does not. All complete conjecture, of course, but its fun to spin theories out loud!
 
I remember the DTM / ITC days Mercedes entries were AMG Mercedes

You would have thought Petronas would have been given the title ahead of the rest

It does not have a good ring to it like Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes
 
Incidentally Mercedes are going to do a Red Bull and miss the first test session to have more time to develop the car in 2012

Ross alludes to that Brawn only did the last week of testing and blitzed everyone
 
Corrected that for you!
Remember Red Bull missed the first test of 2010 because they spent the winter haggling over which engine to use
a) Renault are they staying or are they going
b) Mercedes - yes we have a German driver but Mclaren and BRawn won;t let us have them
c) Cosworth - the other alternative
d) Ferrari - we wrangled ourselves out of it becuase the engine did not match the chassis and we pointed out the deal was with Red Bull corporation not Red Bull Racing exclusively

They missed first test of 2010 and turned up next test and were quick
 
... and had mechanical problems for the first two races of the season. Its always better to attend the tests.


I think I will use BRawn 2009 only appeared last week to make all the adjustments and were supremely quick..they said they lost about a second in lap time because they had to redesign the gearbox for the larger Mercedes engine than the smaller Honda engine
 
I think I will use BRawn 2009 only appeared last week to make all the adjustments and were supremely quick..they said they lost about a second in lap time because they had to redesign the gearbox for the larger Mercedes engine than the smaller Honda engine

the Exception that proves the rule. Brawn had been developing that car for over a year for the new regs and were way ahead of everyone before the testing even started.
 
the Exception that proves the rule. Brawn had been developing that car for over a year for the new regs and were way ahead of everyone before the testing even started.


Read my point they redesigned the gearbox because the Mercedes engine was bigger than the Honda engine and plus had to ditch the kers as well . Apparently this botch redesign cost Brawn another 1 second in race pace
 
Read my point they redesigned the gearbox because the Mercedes engine was bigger than the Honda engine and plus had to ditch the kers as well . Apparently this botch redesign cost Brawn another 1 second in race pace

And if I am not mistaken, would certainly cause doubts over reliability.
 
And if I am not mistaken, would certainly cause doubts over reliability.

The fact is Brawn did a remarkable job having to redesign the car and somehow fit the bigger engine in and move the gearbox as well in such a short space of time and it still worked when they came to the first test and were flying
 
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