Finally a good race from Michael, I was really sad for Nico, he would have deserved a strong point finish. But I suppose he had had a technical problem before he crashed out. But it was good to see something from Michael.

http://fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/...ce-analysis.pdf

Michael consistently lapped half a second quicker than Rosberg up to his pitstop. I'd say he would've easily jumped NR with just one more lap and still would have come out infront of the fast lapping Heidfeld.

IF's and BUT's aren't reality by a long shot but Mercedes might have walked away 8 more points from today's race had they used their brains and seen which car was faster.

a) Released Schumacher from Rosberg - meaning in the final laps he'd have been close enough to pinch points off Hamilton. (A situation created by a stupid decision on the pit wall to pit Schumacher way too early causing him to exist behind Nico)

b) Not kept Nico in a situation where he had Schumacher all over him for much of the race, defending and pushing hard when he was slower possibly putting too much stress through the car causing it to fail in the final few laps...

Schumacher would be 5th and Rosberg 7th in that scenario.

I think the McLaren with a gear missing was quicker than the two Mercedes cars,IIRC...says it all for the W01.


Hope the 2011 challenger will be a beast.

After Rosberg retired Schumacher was a lot quicker than Hamilton!
One glimmer of hope for Mercedes is that the 3 teams that are clearly faster still have a large focus on the current car which will have very limited benefit for next year given the changes in the regs. They might have a chance of been competitive for the first 5-6 races but after that they will probably fall away.

Renault are faster than Mercedes and this may have been a one-off circuit that the W01 worked on... I really hope this is a late charge and turn around with good signs for 2011 but I won't read too much into it just yet.

I am happy how things ended. But, maybe seeing some fight between Michael and Lewis would be good. But, team rob us from this. Team tell Nico to hurry(to catch Lewis) , but it didn't cross their mind to send quicker car to chase Lewis.

Not much of a fight if it had happened. That McLaren had three legs, Schumacher would have cruised past on the exit of any of about 3 corners.

only until the rosberg train ended then we showed how much he was slowing schumacher down

OK, then will just see the same fight as we see when Lewis was passing Michael in the season. Like China.

SUZUKA RACE
http://www.mercedes-gp.com/en/#/category/race/

Michael Schumacher finished the Japanese Grand Prix in the points today after a good start from 10th position on the grid and a strong race, including an exciting battle with his team-mate, saw him finish in sixth place. The team was on course for a double points-finish before an accident for Nico Rosberg brought his race to a premature end on lap 48 when he was in sixth position, just ahead of Michael who was then in seventh place.

NICO ROSBERG
"It was a disappointing end to the weekend today. Due to a clutch problem, my start was poor but our strategy was good to change tyres under the safety car on the first lap which enabled me to recover the places and be racing in sixth position. My tyres were suffering from having done such a long stint so it was tough to maintain a good pace but it was enough to keep Michael behind. Then something broke on the rear of the car and put me into the tyre barrier which ended my race early."

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER
"I am quite happy with the race today and the car felt really good. The opportunity to make up places was just what I hoped for and sixth place was the maximum that we could have achieved. It was good racing and it must have been very entertaining for the crowd. It was fun to be racing Nico so it is a shame what happened to him. We are now heading to South Korea and although I don't really know what to expect, if our car is as good as it was here, then I hope for another encouraging race."

ROSS BRAWN
"We had a strong race today with both cars and it is very disappointing and frustrating that Nico was unable to finish the race. Our prime concern was for his safety and thankfully he is absolutely fine. Prior to the incident, he was in an excellent position having taken advantage of an early stop under the safety car to make up places lost at the start. Michael also had a very good race today with a great start setting him up to make up positions. It was an entertaining few laps when Nico and Michael were fighting for sixth place and we were happy for them to battle it out. We are looking into the cause of Nico's accident now and as always there will be a thorough investigation into what happened."

NORBERT HAUG
"Michael finished in sixth place today and was the first car behind the five drivers fighting for the World Championship. He drove a strong race after he was handicapped with a small technical issue during qualifying. We still need to investigate what happened to Nico's car six laps before the end when he was in sixth position. It is a real shame that he could not finish and sorry to him for that. Nico drove a faultless race and it was a good strategy to bring him in under the safety car on lap one. Michael proved this weekend that he is strong when we give him the base to do so."

You're right,of course: I was watching Kobayashi's times at the time so this slipped my mind....he was over a second quicker,fifth place would've been lovely!


As RedBaron says I think this was probably a one-off for Merc. Nature of the track+car+tyres somehow worked well today,although I do hope their form continues to the end of the season. Bizarre thing is I'd be happier if this were a one off as that would mean Mercedes really have shifted focus completely to next year's car.

From Singapore I think car performance(on different tracks) is pure luck. Hope we will have more luck. But, still they can learn about the car.

After Schumi's last comments on how the car has not always been good or up to par, the question remains, What is actually going right in this car?

Problems seem endless: Wrong weight distribution, problem with the tires warming up in quali (light fuels mode), F-Duct does not work properly, Diffuser update failed, inconsistency between the 2 chassis of Schu and Nico, what else is there that has not failed about this year's car?

Yet they are still coming fourth. Amazing damage control i say!

I hope,next year, things are at least not half as bad as this year. Maybe they can win the championship with just half the problems?!

No complaints from Rosberg or his supporters about the early pit stop. He made the best of his situation and soldiered on like a professional. No complaints so far about bad team strategy.

Thats because he didnt have a bad team strategy.. he had a well called emergency strategy following his bad start and the safety car incident, saving his race, and the teams strategy with his teammate favoured Nico also. To complain about strategy would in that circumstance be bizarre and stupid, and Nico is neither.

Why team didn't pit early(first SC) Michael in Singapore? Because with early pit there he can jump Nico, which team doesn't wanted. In fact if slow car from new team didn't hold Sutil group ,they all would finish before Nico group. How Nico get every time the best startegy? And clearly team put Michael behind Nico in Japan, where they wanted him. With 1-2 laps more there he could easily come infront of Nico? What happen there? Haug said they made tactical error, confirming team plans to put Michael behind Nico. Same in Germany. They sacrifice Michael all the time for 6th/7th place in WDC, which didn't bring anything for the team. Only WCC position bring money and they secure 4th. If Nico was professional like Lewis and Heidfeld, he could say: I am slower than my team mate, there is not point to ruin his and team chances for something more(like 5th place). If he didn't have problem in 48 lap, then Koba definitely would pass them both. It will be nice to see team managers faces then. This guys didn't learn not to put all eggs in one basket.

it was the best strategy for him in that position, what are you talking about??
heck the strategy was so good that they even took care he ends up in front of Michael

To be honest who cares about the pit wall. Schumacher's engineer should have seen what was happening and told him to stay out 1 more lap, it's one side of the garage vs the other side all within one team, Schumacher's side should have thwarted this.

What was Schumacher told? Nico is slower than you, Nico is slower than you. Sorry.

Michael need engineer with balls. Somebody like Smedley(Massa eng.). Michael clearly can't count on Shovlin. I start to think that there isn't two sides of the garage(one vs other) there. It is only one side with mission Nico to get 6th/7th, for Michael is what it is left. It was team order what happen with pit situation.It was hypocrisy when Shovlin said to Michael ,"there is not team orders, you need to overtake". Even I could get Michael in this situation infront of Nico. If there was two sides in the garage , I don't see how Michael side can lose in this situation? Or they are so stupid, they can't calculate. Then they don't have place there. Shovlin even didn't tell him: Sorry. Because he wasn't.

SUZUKA RACE BLOG
http://www.mercedes-gp.com/en/#/category/race/

Friday, Race Week

Hello, I’m Alistair Weston, although I’m more widely known in the team as Spag! It’s a long story to try and explain that one but anyway I am the No.1 mechanic on Michael’s car which means I am responsible for the team of mechanics who work on his side of the garage.

Friday is always our busiest day of the race weekend as we run the car for two 90 minute practice sessions and then repeat all of our preparations on Friday evening, in addition to fitting the race engines and gearboxes, to get the cars ready for qualifying on Saturday.

Japan is a difficult race for the team as the jet lag is really tough to deal with and most people have only been getting two or three hours sleep a night since we arrived on Monday.

We arrived at the garage for 7.30am this morning and went straight into pit stop practice. We take turns at each race weekend with regard to whose car is used and this week, it was Nico’s car, so my equivalent on his side of the garage, Nathan, had the responsibility of ensuring the car was together and ready on time.

Practice went pretty well and afterwards we were backing working on our car to fire-up and shift check to ensure all of the systems are ready for running later on. The first practice session ran quite well. We worked through the run plan that the engineers had prepared, did several changes to the set-up and managed to do a few ‘live’ pit stops with the full crew as practice for Sunday. Michael loves the Suzuka circuit and he got up to speed really quickly finishing in 8th place in the session.

The lunch break of two and a half hours meant a gear ratio change and some more set-up changes ready for the afternoon plus the chance to grab some lunch quickly before we were back out again for the second session. Again that went well and Michael was pleased with the progress that we made, saying that the car felt better than he had expected here, and he finished the session in 8th place again.

The end of Friday running is when we really get busy with engine and gearbox changes and preparing the car to the engineers’ specifications for qualifying and the race. After firing up the newly installed race engine, we take the car to the FIA patch for scrutineering to check its weight and legality. Then it’s back to the garage to complete the set-up preparations and do all of the final checks before Saturday.

I’m about to leave the circuit and go back to our hotel which is in Yokkaichi, a ‘city’ about 30mins drive from Suzuka. We’re all going back to the hotel praying for a good night’s sleep finally and then we’ll see what tomorrow brings. The forecast is for heavy rain over the next 24 hours so it could be a wet qualifying which will mean that we will all need to be on our toes.

Saturday, Race Week

Saturday in Suzuka… well the only way to describe today would be as a total wash out!

We arrived at the circuit for 8.15am for our usual pit stop practice but it was already raining very heavily so Matt, our chief mechanic, decided it would be better to cancel the practice rather than risk any damage to the car. So we got our car fired up and checked everything ready for the start of the final practice session at 11am.

The rain didn’t ease before practice so we sent Michael out to do an installation lap to check the new engine and race gearbox and he came straight back into the garage afterwards. And then that was it… we waited and waited but the rain just got heavier and it was far too wet to send the cars out again. The two Toro Rosso cars went out towards the end but they really struggled and were aquaplaning massively on the straights. Our only activity was pushing both cars out into the pit lane for a practice start just before the end of the session. It was essential for our controls guys but not popular in the garage as we all ended up soaking wet with cold feet after running through the water to push the cars back in!

So our preparation for qualifying was pretty straightforward as the car had only done one lap. We all suspected that qualifying might not happen but we still had to get the car ready to go in case we got the call. So right up until the final track inspection with the safety car, our car was ready and we were doing fire-ups every thirty minutes to keep the engine warm.

As we had all predicted, it was far too wet for qualifying to go ahead with the safety car going out every half hour to check the conditions and the inevitable message coming back that qualifying would be delayed for a further thirty minutes. It was quite entertaining really as it was very relaxing and we had the drivers in the garage chilling out with us. We got the Moto GP qualifying streaming through one of the garage laptops and even made a boat out of drinks bottles with a little Mercedes flag to float down the rivers of the water flowing down the pit lane!

So tomorrow will be busy now with qualifying scheduled for 10am and then the race at 3pm followed by our usual pack-up of the garage. It should make for an interesting day!

The downside to today’s events meant that we were able to leave the circuit earlier than normal around 4.30pm and got caught up with all the spectator traffic struggling in the rain. This turned our normal 30 minute drive back to the hotel into a two hour crawl!

Of course now the mission is to score as many points with Rosberg as possible and words "there is not team orders, you need to overtake" are worth like 100 000 euros or something? It really doesn't matter for me that Michael has to play number two role. The most important thing for me that he and Mercedes finally resolves the problems and he constantly can drive like he did in Japan. And I hope that, after he said aloud that cars not always been the same, in the next GP he will be fast again.

I think we've seen signs of certain dicussions behind the scenes at Mercedes

Ross Brawn has not commented on car differences between Nico and Michael, but Norbert Haug has confirmed Michael's car hasn't been consistent at times

Ross Brawn is being totally quiet on Schumacher's side of things, while Haug is opening up on issues along with Michael.

They must have a limited budget in the remaining races while also concentrated on next years car. Michael is a team player and likely has kept quiet in terms of his role and the resources of the team, take note, when Alonso was at Mclaren, it was all fireworks, Schumi could of said it if he wast at this team for one year, be complaining left right and centre, but he knows it's a long term plan, and Rosberg was just much more consistent this year, he accepts it, it's his first year back, things more difficult then expected, there's nothing to do but to keep your head down, look at areas to improve for better times ahead like at Japan.

Given his reputation and the constant negative views on any bad performance this year from Michael, and the limited resources of the mercedes team, he''s been quite calrm and relaxed about it, analitically picking up discussion points to look back on and see areas to improve, this is a professional at work. If you get hit by a hammer, no point blaming the hammer philosopy comes to mind. Eddie Irvine's best quote "Michael isn't just the best no 1, he's the best no 2, what are we going to do with him?" Sepang 99

Mercedes was kinda lucky Renault didn't get big points from this Japan race, 4th place for the constructors if they get it, would be pretty cool given the prolems opf the year, even a 5th if it happens wouid be expected, but 4th still is quite a saving. Either way the main focus is to fight for big prize in 2011, everything else is background noise.


I wouldn't be surprised if at some point Ross Brawn and Michael decided together to maybe concetrate on Nico's car, because if Michael has been having troubles at times at odd gps, Michael wouldn't want the constructors table to suffer for the team, and he is deeply involved in the mercedes team on a wider level, he wants it to do well, so until he turned some corners, like at japan/spa, he knows if Nico is scoring poiints, it's best to maximise that incase he shows up at a track off the pace given the unexpected gp performances at times this year, it would be a safe bet, the other side/the flip side is, the expected super star has to suffer and get bad press for off key performances, but in a team with problems, you can't be 100% in all areas, and I think Michael knows that better then anyone, so I wouldn't be surpised if things have gone wrong at times on Michael's car, the team has come first this year, rather then maximising Schumacher's recovery and improvement for the press, he's willing to take the pain and be patient for the future, but it did to cement his talent at important gps such as Suzuka and Spa for sure. He's got a plan.

michaels been quite vocal since japan though he probably realises he needs to start now if he wants a chance of beeing considered #1 next year, from some of the stuff hes been saying i get the feeling hes quite quietly confident he can get the car to do what he needs for the last few races he said at the start of singapore he was good with the car but things came away from him as the race went on but gave the impression hes learned why since, hes trying to give of the vibe he can repeat suzuka again in korea and if he manages to show some proper pace again i expect we will hear alot more from him as the power struggle continues.

i suspect nico is starting to feel right at home in mercedes and suzuka probably came like a shot across his bow saying theres still life in the old dog yet dont get to comfortable

He will be number one, if he is ahead in points and (if) Nico R. beggins to fall behind. That's how they both, Michael and Ross operate.

Interesting article about the Mercedes strategy at Suzuka:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/10/13/merc...ont-of-rosberg/

since michael was faster than nico he would have been in danger if nick could have caught and passed nico on the same lap basically, wihtout too much loss
pretty weak I say

the odds on that happening was always going to be pretty much zero... even if he did manage to get past nico how much time would he have lost trying? probably more than he could gain in a lap or two

Didn't know Ant Davidson was working for Merc GP again. Doing simulator work.
http://twitter.com/antdavidson/status/27227835096

I think he is doing this for some months now, maybe all year. No good results though. And MGP simulator is not very accurate I think.

Apparently they have a new simulator. Only what I've heard on the grape-vine though.

Brawn: Mercedes too conservative
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87548

Quite possibly the least happy team on the grid at the moment.

I think if they didn't make such mistakes like wrong WD and high COG and some other mistakes(design mistakes from the beginning), they would be very close to Ferrari and McLaren. We really miss a lot of fun. If the car because of this mistakes was using tyres in right way, they would find this missing 0,5-1 sec. As we see they didn't change much FW and Rear Wing. They didn't change FW because they didn't needed more downforce at the front, because car was heavy there. Because lower air intake they didn't built proper F-duct which can give them 0,2-0,3 sec, to the passive system they have now. All year team was with very limited possibilities for development. And even with this shortcomings to take 4th place is remarkable. Hope they will fight next year with Ferrari and McLaren.

Interesting

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/10/braw...ks-of-his-exit/

"I hear that there will be some changes next year with regard to Rosberg’s race engineering team at the track." from JA
Why is that, I think Michael need change in his engineering team, not Nico?

Why does every Mercedes story have to end up in a Michael vs Rosberg discussion?

From what I gather Allen thinks Jock Clear will move up and obviously that will create a vacancy.

I just think that Michael team is not doing the best job, where Nico eng. team is working well. It is not Michael vs Nico, it is Michael team VS Nico team discussion. I guess Clear deserve to be promoted for his work.

I don't know what he mean, but this will be to late for 2011 car?

I can already see it... intra team fights over the winter, shuffling around of people, high profile guys leaving, a car built to "MS spec" as much as humanly possible, Rosberg misteriously finding a rookie race engineer on his side, lot's of expectation building up...

... and come the first race, Rosberg outqualifies MS by half a second.

Can't wait!

And then Michael turns it around, wins an 8th title and everyone lives happily ever after.

take it to the schumacher vs rosberg thread please we are here to dicuss the team

Everyone I talked about is part of the team, so take your lectures somewhere else.

dont you think there are enough threads for this childish Nico vs Michael fan fights?? can you please let this be a haven for people with something interesting to say??

I wonder if Norbert is the one complaining about the towels?

Tetchy lot these Schumie fans - hilarious....
Like trying to engage with one-eyed religious zealots.

Seriously, has Nico looked particularly vulnerable to his team mate in any situation other than his off form weekend in round 5? Or his starts from the dirty side of the grid? The focus of Michael's defences by his faithful have now focussed on team orders - for heavens sake the team have officially abandoned 2010 and fighting for Nico's WDC points are hardly of any interest to Ross or Norbert.

Interesting but totally unrelated to MGP's employees? Bit of a difficult task, I guess.

But go on, I'm listening!

All they're doing recently is trying to convince sponsors that they're going to build a rocketship tailored for the biggest name in the sport in 2011. Unsee media coverage and bang-for-the-buck awaits those coming onboard. Don't wait 'til it's too late, sign that cheque NOW!

Let's see who falls for it...

never mind..