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Jenson Button, and the constructor’s championship in 2009, grew out of the ashes of Honda’s F1 entry after Honda had withdrawn from F1 at the end of the 2008 season after only a single Grand Prix win for Button in Hungary 2006.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

 

[FB]

 

[RasputinLives]

How many races into 2017 do you think we'll be before a conspiracy of favoritism by Merc towards Toto's own driver Bottas is talked about?

 

[Andyoak]

no more than 2

***Edit: Can you get negative races - conspiracy theories before the season starts / during testing?

 

[Incubus]

Yes. And we have before.

Driver A gets to test the car first - Ah well that's it. Driver B is definitely a number 2 driver.

Driver A gets to test the car on the third day of testing - Ah well that's it. Driver B is a definite number 2 driver. He's done all the boring work and now driver A is th one who gets to do the fast laps. The shape of things to come.

etc...

 

[teabagyokel]

All conspiracies work against Hamilton. Whenever he's not in the car he should be, whatever strategy he's on is wrong.

 

[Incubus]

Actually I also seem to remember talks of conspirancy at McLaren before the season even started in 2015 about Button being number 2 driver because of the order of testing, but then it quickly became clear how hopeless the car was and the only conspiracy then became centered around whether Alonso's tesing crash really had been a case of Fernando resorting to extreme measures to get out of his contract such as waking up in 1995 after electrocuting himself on 3,000,000 squillion volts and thinking he had been driving a go-kart (which would have been quicker than the McLaren-Honda anyway) etc......

 

[Il_leone]

FB How can you forget Flavio Briatore ? When he offered Button a new contract with Renault part of that was to be part of his driving stable (where he earns about 25% commission of drivers salary)

So I think Button increased his earnings from £4m a year to something like £6m potentially but then it would only be £0.5m at least after deducting Flav's commission . I think Trulli had a similar problem when he was negotiatiing his contract in 2004

So not only was Flav getting paid by Renault as an employee but he was getting commission from the drivers being paid by Renault off course we know where that lead to

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives Whenever Hamilton gets the wrong call on strategy
It is less of an issue than had the other driver been Wehrlein which i could see plenty of conspiracy theories about who is favoured between the British and the German media

 

[FB]

I think that was sort of the point I was trying to make Il_leone. Can you imagine if Jose Mourinho had a stable of players that he then signed to Manchester United, negotiating their contracts and the agents fee? F1 is fucking bonkers.

 

[Il_leone]

FB Well F1 is bonkers when money talks as Gordon Gecko says " Greed is good" certainly applies to F1

 

[Bill Boddy]

I think that the worst example was Villeneuve with Craig Pollock and BAR. The team was made for the benefit of the driver and his manager who just happened to be the team principal; just serves BAR right though for making money through killing their customers.

 

[siffert_fan]

How do you feel about Marlboro, sponsor of McLaren for ages?

 

[Bill Boddy]

About the same as Marlboro sponsor of Ferrari. To say nothing of the US film industry, sponsored by the tobacco industry in millions of films.

 

[siffert_fan]

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 ?

No, but Hamilton has been in what is clearly the fastest car for the last 3 seasons which makes passing vastly easier. An how many "shoddy starts" did Hamilton have? And how much moaning did he do about them?

 

[Il_leone]

siffert_fan He did not blame being brushed by other drivers every time-- he had just as many bad starts as Vettel. One race Hamilton was man enough to admit it was his fault something I did not hear from Vettel

Vettel is in the 2nd /3rd fastest car so passing should not that be that much more difficult unless you run the most skinny wing possible which Williams did

 

[Il_leone]

"Too early" for Wehrlein promotion - Franz Tost

 

[siffert_fan]

Il_leone,

The difference is that the gap from the fastest to the second and third fastest cars has been greater than the gaps from the latter to the rest of the field. That makes it far harder for the second and third fastest cars to pass even back markers than it is for the fastest cars.

I also don't recall hearing Vettel moan about personnel changes within the team, as Hamilton did.

 

[Il_leone]

siffert_fan He would if it was done without his consent and it was the difference between beaten and losing to your teammate especially when its your race engineers the guys who set up your car and in his opinion probably the better engineers within the team

In other words you're beating your teammate too much so to give him a chance we'll move your guys to help him become more competitive

 

[Bill Boddy]

Are you saying that Hamilton lost because they swapped the engineers? That, to me, sounds like one of the more unlikely reasons that Rosberg won the WDC; it also insults Hamilton by saying that he can only win when he has the best engineers.

 

[racecub]

Best set of engineers? Or engineers used to working with him? Used to his style and requirements?