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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

Tying that fourth request to a brick helped.

 

[Mephistopheles]

 

[Dash Racing]

Okay, that's hilarious, watching those ads, the ads that pop up at the bottom of YT videos showed Chevy and Ford respectively. Either well played, or oddly fortuitous.

 

[Il_leone]

Mephistopheles I remember Mika Hakkinen was used to promote Mercedes when he was Mclaren driver to the German market

Don't ever remember DC being used in the same way.. maybe two world titles helped

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Is F1 used less in the British market? I can only think of Jenson in the Santander commercials but no direct usage of F1 cars.

 

[Il_leone]

Well I remember at the height of Williams Renault dominance - Mansell was used a bit in the ads for Renault roadcars

Come to think of it the only ads I've seen with British drivers

Hamilton and Button - Santander

Damon Hill - Pizza Hut !

Really the ads will only work in the UK if there are British world champions

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

I'd forgotten the Damon Hill one! I'm trying to think of ads that featured actual F1 cars as opposed to drivers doing non-driving activities such as eating pizza. I have it in my head that advertisers in the UK don't seem to equate the performance of an F1 car with a road car any more. I think advertising regulations mean ads aren't allowed to equate high speed with road cars any more which probably explains it.

 

[The Artist.....]

Honda used its f1 car in the "power of dreams" adverts...


Panasonic advertise TVs using the Toyota f1 cars (every time I go into John Lewis, I still see toyotas (even after 6 years)

 

[racecub]

I found this link, it's a bit old and a few of the ads have been withdrawn, but there are some classics. Some are just the drivers, but some use racing cars. The following ones use racing cars

Shell ( an excellent one I thought)
Two Texaco ones with James Hunt and Morecambe and Wise ( very funny)
The Brands hatch one with Mika
The Gilles Villeneuve one ( though it's appalling quality
The mercedes one with Lewis , Alonso and Mika
Schumacher L'Oreal

http://www.motorsportretro.com/2013/03/formula-1-tv-ads/

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Button Head and Shoulders. Vettel Head and Shoulders. Hamilton Santander. Tag McLaren. DHL (Some pitstop advert, can't remember which team). There have been many many more. I have definitely seen Hamilton in Boss adverts.

Remember that for the most part, advertising in F1 is aimed at the highest end of the retail market. This means that a lot of the advertising around F1 goes into high fashion magazines and pay-per-view sports channels.

Oooh. Who was it that used to feature in the Gillette adverts.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=funny+f1+adverts

 

[Mephistopheles]

People seem to have gone off track here, my original comment was about Hamilton's pay and the suggestion made that Mercedes would use him as a marketing tool to sell their product i.e Mercedes cars which is something I haven't seen done by any drivers in other teams McLaren don't use their drivers to sell McLaren cars, Ferrari don't use their drivers to sell FIAT's and so on.

Drivers using themselves to endorse other products was definitely not the point I needed answering...

 

[Hamberg]

How are people supposed to know your original point when it was

In response to a post on another thread.

?

 

[Mephistopheles]

I thought it was quite clear Hamberg

I have never seen any Mercedes ads that have ever used any of their drivers to promote their cars ever, regardless of how much they they are paid and I don't expect that will change.

A lot of what has been said is either about drivers endorsing other products or sponsors using the team to promote their products i.e Panasonic using Toyota to sell televisions...

 

[Mephistopheles]

Plus my original post was on topic and a lot since then have not been so I thought I would give the thread nudge back on topic.

 

[The Pits]

Infiniti Seb Vettel model? Renault Clio Williams?

 

[cider_and_toast]

So, do we think part of the reason that Mercedes fell down in Malaysia was due to complacency due to their dominence in both testing and at Australia?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Yes, I reckon they thought they would win no matter what they did.

It was like Rocky getting that punch in on Drago and cutting him in Rocky 4.

 

[gethinceri]

Boxing's a bit off topic isn't it?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Sshhhh I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it..