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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

RasputinLives Well Vettel spent most of his year fighting his way back through the field is that down to making shoddy starts which seems to happen a lot with him or actually Ferrari messing up qualifying which only Singapore springs to mind

Its not like Hamilton has spent most of the year first car into the first corner either ?

 

[vintly]

So Il_leone, if Vettel and Hamilton do pair up at Mercedes, I say Vettel would beat Hamilton. Do you take the bet? Maximum £50, evens.

 

[Il_leone]

I am no gambler vintly but seeing the 2016 version Vettel rather than 2013 version you would say Ricciardo, Verstappen, Alonso would all wipe the floor off him if he was their teammate so how would Hamilton be any different

I was watching Senna the other day when it was on TV and obviously a key aspect was his rivalry with Prost which got so intense and when Senna was winning everything hands down on track and off track one of his comments was "Its always someone's fault with Prost and never his own" and this seems to apply a lot to Vettel this year apart from the strategy at Melbourne and Montreal and Singapore quali

 

[vintly]

Well Il_leone if you can't put your money where your mouth is, that's fine, but I don't agree. From a purely racing perspective, I think Hammy and Vettel are the best on the grid, which is why I'd love to see them race in the same cars. Here's hopin'.

 

[Il_leone]

I'd love to see Ricciardo vs Hamilton as he does have great racecraft

 

[racecub]

I think both of the red bull drivers ( for different reasons) would be a bigger challenge to Hamilton than Vettel would.

 

[Titch]

But it's going to be Bottas, so the problem won't arise.

 

[Il_leone]

Titch Bottas for 2017 only possibly

 

[teabagyokel]

Il_leone - Felipe Massa was a one year stop-gap at Ferrari in 2006 and it took them a good seven years to get rid of him.

 

[Il_leone]

teabagyokel Well that was because Schumacher did not want to pass the baton to Raikkonen who turned out to seriously have flushed a lot of Ferrari money down the toilet...I think he's on a 33% of what he did earn back between 2007-2009

 

[cider_and_toast]

The 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Raikkonen?

 

[RasputinLives]

Kimi Raikkonen the only driver other the Michael Schumacher to win a world title driving a Ferrari in the last 35 years?

 

[Il_leone]

yep that Kimi who was paid $51m a year and now gets paid around $15m except for $51m Ferrari was expecting a lot more from Kimi in his 3 years at Ferrari... well certainly Luca thought that way

----------

It looks like Bottas has got the drive which brings me back to a few things

i) Last year when Prost was releasing his Autobiography , Maurice Hamilton thought the 3 drivers on the grid who take a similar approach and thinking to racing were

Vettel, Rosberg and Bottas


ii) I read in F1 racing magazine in an article that the Williams engineers thought Bottas had better brain capacity to take in and compute information than Rosberg


So potentially Bottas once he is settled down could become an even tougher opponent than Rosberg

 

[Rutherford]

I hope Bottas doesn't get the drive at Mercedes, I don't want to see Massa again.

 

[vintly]

Sounds like it's gonna happen though.

 

[Il_leone]

It does sound like it will happen unless the contract offered to Bottas states he will be NO 2 which he will definitely not accept or he argues over money

Williams have lost out in the deal

 

[RasputinLives]

Yeah but his contract is negotiated by his manager Toto Wolff so I'm pretty sure all the terms will be agreed with.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives

So its just a formality then.. no doubt his odds to be world champion has just shortened

 

[FB]

Is there any other walk of life where the manager of someone would also negotiate their contract as an employer? Does Toto sit in his room arguing with himself about how much to pay Bottas? Bloody stupid.

 

[Incubus]

Is there any other walk of life where the manager of someone would also negotiate their contract as an employer?

------------------------

Well there was one even wackier instance regarding ex-Sunderland manager Niall Quinn, who also happened to be the club's chairman at the time. he had a lot of arguments with himself regarding his performance as a manager and eventually sacked himself before recruiting Roy Keane.

Whether he ever made up with himself or agreed a compensation package with himself isn't known.