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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

Success at any cost?

Mercedes lost £76.9m in winning 2014 F1 title

 

[Il_leone]

I think you have question the wisdom of high the costs of producing the powertrains was that expensive in the first place. Mercedes can absorb the loss if it meant the car sales increased exponentially

 

[soccerman17]

The Formula 1 team lost 76.9 m. Mercedes as a whole gained much more than that through the advertising.

 

[Bill Boddy]

It sounds like a football team Brogan. Maybe they need a rich Russian ex-patriate.

 

[siffert_fan]

Success at any cost?

Mercedes lost £76.9m in winning 2014 F1 title

And that illustrates perfectly the impossibility of the independents ever being able to challenge a manufacturer.

 

[Olivier]

Mercedes are now back-to-back champions. It's just a matter of time (a rece, 2 tops) before the drivers' championship is decided in their favour as well. 2006 cannot come any sooner ...

 

[Brogan]

A not unsurprising lack of comments on Mercedes' second WCC.

Regardless of what one may think, they have done a great job and deserve their success.

Congratulations Mercedes!

 

[Il_leone]

Before anyone has a go at them. They did see this opportunity back in 2010-2011 and geared themselves up in order to invest and prepare for it long term and sacrificing short term performance gains

It is a savvy business decision and they also got the right people involved in the project.. some may question Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda but it seems to be working

They are reaping the rewards from it ( Red Bull take note)

 

[Grizzly]

Well done Ross Brawn! My applause goes to you and the team you led to this position.

 

[P1]

Mercedes ready to field third car to make up numbers. Sounds like Ferrari is too.

F1 news: Still time to add third F1 car for 2016, says Mercedes' Toto Wolff

 

[RasputinLives]

Ferrari having been wanting and campaigning for that for years so I'm sure they are ready too. I don't think a recent season has gone by without them mentioning it. Not surprised Merc is on board either.

I'm not a fan of the idea if I'm honest. We all know teams always in the end defer to a defacto number one driver. 3 car teams just mean they'd have two rear gunners instead of one.

Edit - Just noticed that Mclaren have the three car agreement in place too. Whilst it would solve their driver queue I'm not sure F1 needs another off pace car struggling at the back of the field.

 

[Incubus]

A not

Regardless of what one may think, they have done a great job and deserve their success.

!

----------------------------------
Just my opinion but I think there is another reason for the lack of comments, which is that their title only materialised several hours after the race when Raikkonen was hit with his penalty. It doesn't quite generate the same interest when you read about it as opposed to witnessing it on the track, a bit like a re-heated bolognese (which mind you actually tastes nicer the following day).

Other than that yeah, stunning job by Mercedes these past 2 years. Shame they didn't have a constructors' championship back in the 1954-55 period, they would (probably) be on their 4th title by now.

 

[FB]

Interesting.

Mercedes considers radical concepts for 2016 F1 challenger

 

[teabagyokel]

Interesting. There's always the McLaren 2012 trap to avoid there though...

 

[sushifiesta]

McLaren probably ended up with the fastest car on the grid in 2012 though but they made a meal of that season with a load of team errors and reliability issues and the cars have only got worse since...

 

[teabagyokel]

I think they'd take a season of 2012 mismanagement right now.

 

[FB]

Naughty man.

Formula 1: Mercedes takes action against engineer

 

[siffert_fan]

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.

 

[teabagyokel]

... but if Nigel Stepney tells you anything then IGNORE HIM and DO NOT USE PUBLIC COPY SHOPS IN CONTACT WITH MARANELLO.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Nigel Stepney will definitely NOT be involved even if he is exhumed. The point is that it was not just what he was taking in his head he was also taking documentation. Interesting that Ferrari are the innocent party once again in a scandal about intellectual property.

In the past contracts of employment sometimes included a worker moving to another company in the same field for a number of years, there were cases on people like Inland Revenue moving to large companies and taking information on tax avoidance with them; there was a stop put to this but under EU rules restricting a person's freedom of movement it might not be possible.