FOOL!! You shouldn't comment about things you obviously know nothing about. Your disrespect screams ignorance, and no amount of hand waving from your armchair is going to impress anyone. Next week you are likely to want to give Schumacher driving lessons.


Cooper

Can you say something about situation if you know something or you will just call people names? If they improve I will be happy to admit may mistake, if they don't who will be fool then?

Listen child, you just insulted pretty much the entire engineering department of Mercedes without having an inclination as to what is wrong with the car. You were calling them names, and spinelessly you sit there and pretend I called you a name? You don't want to know what I called you! I didn't print it. "Fool" came out of the goodness of my heart, I was being generous.


The car is not quick, that much is obvious. I have no idea why, so I am not going to point fingers. If they don't improve it quick, Schumacher can forget about the championship. But I have every faith in Schumacher and Brawn working together, and they will make it better. They will also have to make the car work better for Michael, as right now he is not able to drive it the way he wants, unlike Rosberg, who seems to like it, yet he is not fast enough. Will it be enough? We will just have to wait for the answer.


Cooper

I do have a general theory about the problems though. I believe the car has a very narrow sweetspot. Hence it can be quick if it is setup perfectly to a set of conditions, but over a race it suffers due to the changes in weight, tyrewear, and varying road-surface grip levels. The Ferrari is likely the best at this, though the Red Bull is obviously the quickest car in many situations.

You would think that in qualifying the Mercedes would at least be fast, but the problem is that Q3 is with race setup, which means the setup is compromised and hence they are not competitive. You will notice though that in Q1 and Q2 Rosberg was quite competitive (qualifying setup was used I think).


Cooper

Something that wouldn't surprise me is if this, like alot of previous Ross Brawn cars, is simply an evolution until the european stages commence. The idea in 2002, 2003 and 2005 was to remain competitive while being able to bridge the gap lost on development throughout the previous season in the title race.

marchi, hope you are right. Ferrari and RBR are also evolution form last year. In terms of performance was real revolution for Ferrari. We all hope that in "normal" tracks situation will be different. But I think we will have more problems from the teams behind us, than we to catch front-runners.
Dale you are to generous to me and "entire engineering department of Mercedes" . But their latest work is not big compliment for them. I also don't like people to make big promises. Because soon you stop to believe them. And if you have problem,just say so. As you say MGP car is not fast with compromised setup(Q3=race setup). But this is what this year is about. There is no point to be quick in Q1 and Q2. There is only point to be quick with compromised setup. I don't like it. I prefer Q3 with qualy setup and race with race setup. But who ask me?

The team is THE Mercedes works team now. No longer the cash strapped Brawn team it was last year.
I find it very interesting to follow what Mercedes will do in the next few weeks and months to match or even better the development rate of RedBull, Ferrari and McLaren.
The car is slow, but not a dog like McLaren last year at the start of the season.
I do think they need to be a bit more daring and aggressive in terms of design.

Brawn is the team principal, his role in the design of the car is probably zero. The truth is that most of these guys have been in F1 for ~12 years and have produced 1 very good car(mainly due to a loophole and extra development time), 2 decent cars, including this years car, and the rest were lemons. Clearly Brawn has improved the structure of the team but it's also clear that Redbull/Mclaren were able to design a better DD car in 6 months than the guys at Brawn were in 18 months.

Great Post . In fact it is still team Honda(same people, same engineers).

Well, when it was Honda it wasn't the cash strapped Brawn either. Didn't work out back then.

AMuS: Car is still too heavy on the tyres. Front or rear tyres are overheating (depends on track)
The engineers need more freedom with the weight balance, so the car must lose weight.
That will not change before the start in europe.


MSa: Haug promises various changes to the car for Melbourne "but only small steps".

Fry "We´re a bit limited with improvement at the three overseas races but at Barcelona our engineers will ensure that we make a step foward. We have a plan"

Asked what changes can be expected (a new monocoque, aerodynamic)

Fry "I can´t reveal that but there will be changes. I`m 100% confident that we manage that. We have the equipment, we have Ross Brawn. We lack nothing"

Honda had a terrible frozen engine. The worst of all engines.

In Fairness the Honda Engine was only part of the problem. Still the same guys cam up with the BGP001 which was a stunner of a car!

Isn't the monocoque homologated now? Can you change it midseason without reliability problems?

Now, shortest car on the grid need to loose weight? Situation getting better and better. We were thinking that car is short, then they can play with a lot of ballast. Drivers need to lose 10kg. pronto. Shortest wheel base is one of the main problem I think. How some teams like FI managed to make long car and not to have problem with weight? Dreams of MGP car slower 0,3-0,5 s than front cars is a just nice memories from tests.

Things aren't as simple as you might think.

Armchair engineering won't help you much, I think you'd do better if you just followed spec series like GP2 or IRL. Cheering only for some F1 driver rather than a team might also work good.

Real engineering is hard work, it's about systematic use of scientific and mathematical knowledge, whereas armchair engineering is easy and pointless.

anakin, do you think I need your advices? From fellow armchair engineer like you? We are all here armchair engineers. Because I don't think you are F1 engineer. Can somebody here say what he think without qualifications? A lot of people think like me , maybe a lot think like you(if you tell us what you actually think). I am simple engineer and I follow Schumi from Sauber Mercedes times. And will follow him until he quit F1. Any other advices? If you want to cheer us with some "systematic use of scientific and mathematical knowledge" about МGP please go on.

I have a degree in physics and another one in electronics and computer science engineering. I've worked for the racing industry in the past, though not directly involved with F1. However, that's not the point...

What can I say about MGP without actually working there or knowing some insider? Not much, I can only draw some generic conclusions but nothing concrete as we don't have access to their data.

What I won't do is think I'm smarter than Ross Brawn or any member of his stuff and come up with rude comments like you have been doing recently.

I'm a fan of Schumacher since F3, yet I follow F1 because above all I'm a fan of physics and high tech.

Enjoy the 2010 from this perspective. Let's think positive and believe all the money from Mercedes and the technical skills of the engineers will enable MGP to have a superior rate of development than the other teams. The car isn't a dog, it's a solid base from which I hope we can expect some great achievements.

I can understand you feel frustrated about Michael not being able to at least fight for the podium, but isn't it much more interesting to fight your way through the season with good driving and engineering than dominate the field from race one? That's what Michael loves, helping the team and together overcome all their issues to eventually win!

There's a difference between giving an unqualified opinion and being an arrogant armchair engineer. This forum welcomes the first but doesn't appreciate the later.

Getting back to topic, I don't think MGP is that far away from the performance of Ferrari and Red Bull.

Tyre temperature range and the longer than usual Bahrain circuit probably made it look worse than it actually is.

We've heard comments stating that Michael was easily overheating his tyres over the optimal temperature range, thus loosing time till the end of the lap. We've also heard that Hamilton was destroying his tyres on FP. Maybe MGP and McLaren aren't taking care of the rubber as well as Ferrari and Red Bull.

Maybe this is a problem, or it could also be a design option, taking into account that the average temperatures during the whole season will be lower than at Bahrain and some other races. The long runs from MGP didn't look that bad in winter testing where the temperature was low.

The long lap time of about 2 minutes also helps the time gap to the other teams to look greater than it actually is.

All in all the great gaps among the grid could be an indication of tyre issues. Bahrain being hot could have placed some teams outside their optimal range.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/
"Schumacher’s race sums up F1’s problem"

Usual nonsense from Allen.

"Schumacher hadn’t mastered the first lap on the new tyre, especially when the track got hotter in the decisive Q3 session. What happened then was that he overheated the tyre in the middle sector, which featured the twisty new section. And because of the way he had the Mercedes set up, the tyres did not cool down on the straight which followed, so he wasn’t quick through the final sector."

The track got COOLER in Q3- it dropped from 47 to 37. Schumacher was 3 tenths slower than Rosberg in S1, 1 tenth slower in S2 and a tenth faster in S3.

Not sure about this. I heard that Mercedes offered support if Ross requested it, but until then they would allow him to run the team.

Mercedes could offer more people, but Ross and some other teams are looking to reduce numbers to the 450 mark for the resource restriction.

Unfortunately I don't see McLaren and Ferrari slimming down, so until then they'll probably have a manpower advantage.

Barrichello said that if they'd gotten the Mercedes engine on the Honda 2008, they would have made Q3 with both cars on every race.

It seems the power deficit was aroung 70bhp.

F1 aero updates, Bahrain

Mercedes

Having run 2009 specification wings and floor since testing started, Mercedes arrived in Bahrain with its first set of definitive 2010 bodywork. Most notable amongst the changes is the new nose cone, still following its predecessors low shape, the nose has now had the downforce producing strakes removed. Albeit these are subsequently replaced by two pairs of strakes fitted downstream, one long pair running along the chassis top and a angled pair sited just ahead of the sidepod inlets.

Last year the team ran a relatively low nose, this was partly due to the way the hubs feed cooling air to the brakes and the inherent restriction that places on the upright design. Uniquely Honda and Brawn fed cooling air to the carbon discs inside the oversize front hub and out through radial holes. This required the brake ducts to feed directly into the hub, compromising the upright design. Other teams feed cooling around a slim line hub to the discs, allowing more freedom in brake duct, wishbone and pushrod placement.

The W01 has more conventional hubs and uprights, which has allowed the higher placement of the wishbone mounts and hence the higher nose all to gain aerodynamic advantage. Also the oil cooler has been resited for the W01, fed by the undercuts around the pillar style roll hoop. But rather than feeding through along duct back to a cooler mounted near the gearbox, the team have instead nestled the cooler fed by a vertical duct from the inlet in between the airbox and monocoque. At the rear the team have a new diffuser, which has also gained the attention of the Bahrain scrutineers and the team have been asked to amend the starter hole before the Melbourne GP.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/article...es-bahrain.html

Teams have to comply to the 450-ish figure by 1 January 2011 I believe.
Assuming Mercedes are not limited in terms of designing parts,
the bottleneck could be in the area of producing the parts for windtunnel testing and if signed-off, full-scale parts or the race car.
However, nothing stops Mercedes to hire temps to work on the shop floor until they need to comply. They still have the facilities from the Honda era.
They also have access to engineering resources in Stuttgart. And don't forget there's the engineering facilities of Mercedes-Benz HPE, which is 28 miles away from Brackley. When the team was bought by Mercedes they said they would exploit synergies between Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines and the Mercedes GP. Mercedes HPE is primarily an engine design and manufacturing facility, but that doesn't mean they can't be used for other non-engine related design and production tasks. As there's an engine freeze, the designers are twiddling their thumbs anyway, as there's not much they can do.

I don't think resources will hold them back, but rather ideas and innovation.
RedBull is quick not because they have enormous resources, but because they have clever and daring designs. Just look at their car.

Thats so true - The red bull really seems to represent 'out of the box' thinking.

Allen is starting to sound more like Windsor in full analysis mode. Tyre performance may be a one-off at Bahrain and we may find a different mix on the first few rows. Anakin's comments provide reason for us to hope MGP are closer than casual viewing would indicate. How the cars use their tyres provide anomalies between practice, qualifying and race and I think McLaren and Mercedes are very close with RedBull and Ferrari probably favoured to swap ascendency at different circuits. These two do visually look better on track although Rosberg's fluid style flatters the Mercedes visually.

You make some good points. What do you think about the possibility that perhaps in their enthusiasm to cure the tyre warming issue of 2009 Mercedes(Brawn) went too far and now have the tyres over-heating instead? That would be pretty ironic.


Cooper

I was kind of thinking the same thing.

Sportbild reports that Mercedes uncovered the low top speed as their biggest weakness.
Haug says it could take about 3 races to have a similar solution as McLaren.
The aim is to have the improved car at Barcelona.

from Ted Kravitz behind the scenes at the Bahrain Grand Prix

"The car has mechanical issues with the suspension that are hurting tyre management and losing the drivers lap time.

Rosberg can handle the resulting understeer, but Schumacher is further compromising the car's set-up as he tries to tailor the car to the way he likes it, with immense front-end grip.

This team is going to take a bit of time to settle in. Trouble is, the championship might have a couple of runaway leaders by then."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport...one/8572060.stm



i have a lot of faith in Ross and Schumi and to others in the Merc team, im sure they will sort out the problems and close the gap, i kinda feel like it is 1996 when Schumi went to Ferrari and Williams were a lot faster than them but they kept working and coming closer and closer.

On a side note have you invented the light saber yet?

1996 was a Williams domination, for MS fans sake 1997 level of competiveness would be better.

Would anyone dare to create a matrix and identify tracks on which MGP team-car will (a) dominate, (b) driver will pull victory through sheer determination? I am beggining to think that MGP team will play catch up game for rest of the season, yet at the same time I don't think Ferrari might not be strong on all tracks, while RBR seems pretty universal and hard to predict.

I wonder if at some point Ross with his team will not realize that he wan't be able to make the car competitive everywhere, and hence he will revert to B-strategy, which is to win all those races for which the cars is most suitable.

Its a crying shame that just as Michael came back they reduced the width of the front tyres. He would of loved that amount of front end grip.

Shame that he never got the 2003-2006 Michelin tyres, I would of loved to see him on them.

Although I'm not sure about the Kravitz comment. The Ferrari era Bridgestone fronts were nowhere near the level of Michelins. They had better front grip and braking and stability. Drivers commented on this many times. You could carry crazy amounts of entry speed and the tyre stuck. Bridgestone's meanwhile were more aerodynamic and better in the fast corners. Michael used to say that his had to adjust his driving style to take advantage of the other characteristics of the Bridgestone tyre, less entry and higher exit speed. Now I understand that grip is relative and the grip level in 06 might be more than 10 but Michael has dealt with tyres that haven't given him high front end grip, so I'm not sure that his driving style needs as much as stated in the extract.

But you can tell that the tyre management and consistency isn't as good as the others, so I do think that there is an issue with weight distribution and tyre temp.

It was a long day at work today... I've just managed to settle and read the latest posts.


I believe that fixing the tyre warming issue was certainly one of the top tasks on their agenda. Having a narrower front tyre and a totally different weight distribution in 2010 certainly made this task harder for them. If the rules had been kept the same this season it would be much more linear to fix, without the added variables. So, answering to your question I think it is possible that they've gone too far. However, as I've mentioned it could also have been a one off at Bahrain because of the high temperatures and the car will work the tyres at their optimal range in cooler races. Limited winter testing with freezing temperatures doesn't help either, no matter how good their simulations might be. I think Australia being a somewhat peculiar circuit and Malaysia another hot race won't let us know for sure until China or the European season.


Sure! Didn't you see me using it in the movies?

Nahhh, assuming a laser would be used I still didn't manage to stop light from radiating away from the tip of the saber or avoiding dangerous reflections. However, there's some hope in the form of a plasma saber!

the problem will be I doubt that mercedes gp has the resources that ferrari say have as demonstrated in the late delivery of the racing diffuser. that and very limited testing bode poorly for the season. they were not on the same page as the front 2 teams come race day and who knows may have even been embarassed by force india were circumstances different

lets face it. brawn got away to a flyer last year and were allowed to keep their advantage by a mosely fia determined to stick it to ferrari and mclaren. by half season they had lost that advantage and never regained it. this season is merely a continuation of that trend

Mercedes target podium in Australia

http://www.planet-f1.com/news/3213/6033773...um-In-Australia

Apparently Deutsche Post/DHL are in talks with Mercedes GP to become a sponsor as of the Spanish GP.
They held talks with Dieter Zetsche in Bahrain. Source: F1Today.nl

Nico to RTL: "I´m looking forward to the next race and I believe we can improve very quickly. The "good" thing is that we have some problems with the car so it´s not like that the car feels perfect and is slow. No, there are some bigger problems so we know: If we can fix that, we can expect a big step forward. This makes the development a bit easier for us."

Ok, I know Nico is an optimist and thats all fine and dandy. But I swear the boy will see a silver lining in a mushroom cloud!

He should take a leaf from something called "the rest of the team", and stop hyping it up. I get worried when I hear assurances, I sleep easier when I know people are working around the clock. So statements like "I believe we can improve very quickly" gives my no comfort at all. Never has, never will.

They must have done some simulation which puts them in the front, and in sectors where they aren't fast, they hope to defend the racing line. If one would go by averages, which could be quite misleading how a race will evolve, MGP needs in my estimation about 3.5 sec advancement to dominate the field comprehensively. Obviously they don't agree, so what gives?

Just curious....

Are there any other McLaren fans who have adopted Mercedes as their "B" favorite team? I know that I certainly fall into this category.

Regarding Schumacher's pace, I think he just needs a handful of races under his belt to get fully up to his speed. Even Prost needed this when he came back and ran over everyone in 1993. Judging by the fact that he set a quicker fastest race lap than Rosberg in Bahrain- when Rosberg had plenty of incentive to go fast at the end to catch and get by Vettel- indicates he might be ahead of schedule.

There's a reason why he's the greatest. He'll be back before too long.

But in this thread, there are much more Schumi fans that I don't think they are McL‘s fans too.

Ferrari fan (thanks to Schumacher) who has now adopted Mercedes as my "A" team, Ferrari is now the "B" team.

You've made quite a good observation regarding the fastest lap of Schumacher, even though Rosberg was in qualifying mode in the final laps! That's quite something.

McLaren buys back Mercedes stake.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82224
More money for MGP? Also good news about Deutsche Post/DHL sponsorship if true. Hope will help. There were also talks for other big sponsor which never invested in F1 before. But I think that deal didn't happened.

It could have been worse.





And as long as it’s not that ugly and stupid “I love Post” sticker, it's fine by me.

I heart:

my fav quote of the week.