I'm pretty sure that as the official works team, Mercedes get first bite at the apple. Especially considering that they own the apple tree.

Sky News still running footage of that press conference from August.

That's quite naughty of them.

It's now through Kar, they're using your real name which I've removed in case you don't want people to see it.


*** ***December 23rd, 2009 REPLY QUOTE
Clearly you don’t like the sport mate. Michael’s return, alone, will help undo much of the awful damage cretinous, self-interested ‘journalists’ such as yourself have done with your partisan hackery these past 3 years.

I'm somewhat of a disillusioned Mercedes GP fan

Having been a fan of the team since the BAR days i have always been able to associate with at least one of the drivers, now I find myself in a position where I won't support either driver. I have never taken to Rosberg and find his talent doesn't quite stack upto his reputation IMO. Being English i'm a typical underdog supporter so have never liked Schumacher for not only that reason but that some of his under handed tactics have just never sat right with me.

Any other Mercedes GP fans feeling this way?

At Adelaide in 1995, I saw him on the way into the circuit and ran up into a throng of people (I think I was 13) and yelled 'Es freut mich Sie kennen zu lernen, Michael' in mangled austro-deutsch. He must have heard it, because he signed my ticket and only a couple of the others that rushed him.

He was just a boy then when I think about it. Pretty amazing that he's an old man now.

Cool man, I met Senna in 1992 at Adelaide in much the same circumstances!

Agree. Anyone who thinks that Schumacher is a 'shameless cheat' but can't see the same quality in 50% of sports people, are clearly just dumb-focused on the guy they hate winning.

But from hidden turbos, to brake-testers, to secret fuel tanks, to tampered fuel-rigs, to IP stealers, to crashers, to parkers, to blockers, to collusion, to concealed springs, to flexible wings, to .... need I go on.... there's 50 years of cheating in F1, which twats like Coding are so selectively aware of they must live in a fairytale world.

Schumacher is an undisputable talent. However I've never been a fan of him due to some of his transgressions on track and his personality or the way he comes across on screen.

Rosberg, on the other hand, is a fresh new talent who will hopefully suprise us all.
I've no problem supporting him and really hope his younger age will be an asset going up against MS.

First and foremost I support the Brackley team and look forward to the car they will roll-out.

Can't say I disagree with Coddling though.

Schumacher was a shameless cheat, or was at least very happy to benefit from his team bending the rules.

For instance:

* Macau 1990: Dodgy chop and crash with Mika Hakkinen
* World Sports Cars, 1991: Deliberate crash into the Jaguar of Derek Warwick after he felt Warwick had held him up in qualifying
* Adelaide 1994: Perhaps a 50/50 with Damon Hill so lets give Schumacher the benefit of the doubt
* All season 1994: Senna went to his grave thinking Schumacher was using illegal traction control. Watching Schumacher blow by both Williams at the start of the 1994 French Grand Prix would support that view IMO.
* Fuel pipe filter, 1994: Exposed as being missing after the Hockenheim Verstappen blaze, but who knows how long Benetton had not been fitting it?
* Refusing to share overlays with Johnny Herbert, but getting to see his, 1995. Not cheating, but hardly sporting
* Jerez 1997: Driving into Villeneuve at the world championship deciding moment
* Canada 1998: Blatantly driving Heinz-Harald Frentzen off the road
* Malaysia 1999: Illegal bargeboards, overturned
* 1999 - 2009: Ferrari's power of veto, its special relationship with the FIA
* 2000: Attempting to block the circuit at the A1 Ring after being hit by Zonta to try and have the race restarted
* 2002: Having his team mate ordered to move over for him
* Imola 2004: Driving Montoya straight off the circuit at Tosa
* Monaco 2006: Parking it to block the track to prevent Alonso having the best time

With a record like that, who knows what dirty tricks we don't know about...

Don't get me wrong, Schumacher is also a massive talent so didn't need to try and tilt things in his favour illegally.

To me his legacy will always be tainted, but it's still an impressive legacy.

I will always support the team but i'm struggling to associate it with a driver too.

I agree with you there, which is why all the fury over the McLaren/Ferrari IP thing, Singapore 2007, Lewis telling a fib to stewards is so laughable.

But it is right of Coddling to point out that Schumacher cheated during his career. Because he did.

That's over two decades though, at the very front the entire time. If we were to prepare a rapsheet for Hamilton after just 3, it would look quite chequered too. This isn't to excuse Michael. But it does highlight the cognitive dissonance at play with many people's views on the guy (of either Michael or Lewis for that matter).

Yeah, crazy.

Schumacher's on the BBC now!

He didn't just point it out, he hoped he failed on account of it. That's like me saying I hope Lewis has a rubbish car for the rest of his career because he cheated in Australia.

It would be an imbecilic thing to say because Lewis at his most interesting is a Lewis fighting it out at the front in a pressure cooker. Same thing with Michael.

That's why I think Codling is bitter (at best). Because hoping Michael's return ends up in embarrassing failure is good only for schadenfreude. It's better for the sport if Michael is competitive and in contention.

I am over the moon. This is a loveboat of a racing team. Old foes unite under a new badge. Its like an american sports movie, you just could not make this stuff up. Could anyone imagine such a team in 2007?

It is a legitimate view.

That you don't agree with it doesn't make Coddling an imbicile.

He did. But the way the world is these days, with so much ability and propensity to cheat and analyse - I doubt many more multiple world champions will be known as anything other than a cheat. Hamilton and Alonso are already building such reputations in the eyes of those who are looking for it.

Yep, agreed.

Which is why the penalties of recent year are so ridiculous.

Then it almost certainly makes him either a) a hypocrite or b) biased then. Since if he applies that logic to Schumacher, he doesn't appear to elsewhere.

They all come at it with a point of view.

I know you're a big fan of Roebuck, but he has plenty of bias.

He does. I respect him for the quality of his writing and the passion of his views. Not necessarily for the views in and of themselves.

Same here. But they pretty much all have various leanings, especially the good ones.

And on that note I need to go do some work before talking about Michael Schumacher costs me my next contract!

One that I've never seen mentioned is that when his engine blew at Suzuka in 06 he carefully stayed on line through the Degeners, hoping that Alonso might go off on his oil. Took the apex at Degener2 at about 20mph. When he saw him go past, then he pulled off.

Video

Mercedes chief executive Nick Fry believes Michael Schumacher will help take the team to the next level and predicts the seven-time world champion will forge a strong working relationship with new team mate Nico Rosberg.

Do you know anybody when will Mercedes present their new car?

Nothing's been announced.
If they opt for a low-cost presentation, I expect it to be in Valencia right before track testing starts on 1 February.

By having in mind that the common launch event planned for January 30th or 31st has been scrapped, and the first tests will take place on February 1st, the new car may be presented at the test event itself or one week before between January 25th to 29th.

Michael is in for 3 years, Seb is in for 2011...? It all begs a question what Nico is thinking about all of this? Something is not adding up with these "stories" that are floating around.

possibly new layout of BGP002 ?
[+1]

I think this story about Vettel joining Mercedes in 2011 is just total bogus. Vettel extended his red bull contract to the end of 2011 with an option for 2012.

Clearly last year's car. You really think they would show the 2010 model?

I don't think it works like that, the engines are produced to the same spec, I doubt Mercedes went through every engine last year to pick the best engine for McLaren.

To say that Mercedes are going to give customer and partner teams inferior engines to their own works team is insulting to Mercedes.

How many ferrari staff will now follow

Mercedes : Customer Is King

Anyhow, post-homologation, post-freeze, post rev-limit, i am not sure exactly how much scope there still exists for the old-fashioned B-spec customer lumps that we used to see.

Yeah, sure given a workshop full of pistons, the 8 very, very best balanced set will end up in a Merc-bound unit, that's just common sense, but we're talking pretty tight tolerances just to make an F1 engine turn-over, I doubt there's gonna be that much of a visble difference down the back-straight to worry about right now.

After the long partnership, ther emust exist a reasonable volume of data, I doubt it'd be easy to slip anything too second best into the supply. We'll see, for example, after three years of no powertrain failure, if Lewis suddenly starts popping engines in practise, and Newey hasn't been anywhere near the design ... then who knows.

Not sure how much leverage customers have in this situation.
But with an eight engine limit, surely the Administration could specify that the sealed, barcoded, tracked engines are selected at random, pre-season, by the customer teams ... just to nip it in the bud and for the avoidance of doubt. Prost and Senna used to pick the Engine Management chips out of a hat, in this case, it just seems a small, cost-free procedure that could avoid a lot of unnecessary bad-press and fanboy conspiracy-theory as the season comes to a hopefully exciting climax.

No, I mean that Mercedes GP get a luxury that only McLaren had (ad now subsequently lose): their car will be specifically designed around the Mercedes engine. Customer teams will simply have to make it fit. I seriously doubt any manufacturer or engine supplier combs through their engines in the search of the best ones for themselves and the rest get shipped off to the other teams. There has been the suggestion that Ferrari do it by supplying inferior stock to Toro Rosso (and, for next season, Sauber), but Ferrari have an unspoken policy of only supplying engines to teams that cannot rival them on-track. Mercedes follow a different tack; Norbert Haug was clearly overjoyed when the Brawns were winning. Mercedes don't care who wins the race if they're carrying Mercedes engines, although it goes without saying that if they had to choose who won in 2010, it would be Mercedes GP first.

I don't where to post the following since there are a few Schumacher and Mercedes related threads atm, but I think it fits best here.

Does anyone know what's up with Norbert Haug? Coincidentally I've seen the end of an interview with Haug in German TV earlier on today (ok, basically yesterday... about 6 hours ago). He looked tired and sounded quite ill, speaking slow and quiet with a raspy voice... kinda like he had an apoplexy. I thought Mercedes should have taken someone else for that interview which was broadcasted during one of, if not the, most watched news in German TV. Really strange situation... maybe he didn't sleep for days and/or was celebrating Schumacher's arrival? :>

They are getting MS, that is one hell of a deal...

-KB

Petronas could not care less if their corporate color (green to most Malaysians since there is no direct translation of turquoise in Malay) is not incorporated in the car's livery. BMW-Sauber cars with Petronas as corporate sponsor did not have any turquoise in them too.

They key to F1 is winning and the publicity generated from it. As it is, Petronas is already recouping some of its investment from the publicity generated from signing MS.

-KB

Bild says the new car will be presented in Stuttgart at the end of January (no exact date mentioned though).

Yes, and they think the first test will be hold in Jerez in 10th January....

February

This implies they will run the old car in Valencia: Feb 1 to Feb 3.

Is this an official picture?

Not meaning to be negative about Mercedes colours, but black writing on silver background is sub-optimal from a TV point of view. Why not a white outline around the Petronas?

it does look a bit dull, but I think that will be a mock up, 1. Would it be legal to have it running? 2. If it was running, why bother with sponsor logos and colours

Better still (IMO), would be to make the logo white and paint the sidepod in Petronas' trademark blue-green(?) colour. It's a blatant copy of McLaren's solution....but then again they stole Mercedes' WDC >_<



EDIT: like I've done the rear wing here..

Your solution is IMO far superior to the rendering seen quoted before.

Good job mate!

Right, now that Michael is a driver for Mercedes, what will the speculation about the car be?

We have yet to hear about a flood of German engineers into the team and the increased resources of the team. Anyone got any news? Any info on the design of the car, what the aero figures are looking like?

I can imagine better engine installation, because Button on Top Gear said that they got the engine late and had to fit spacers in to fill the gaps, so that will be sorted.
The engine generally runs cool but McLaren always had the better cooling and Brawn compromised themselves several times in the hot races, that too will be sorted but at what expense to the sidepods?

I can imagine a refinement of the front wing endplates which looked a little basic and not sculpted.

I had the impression that Brawn's front wings were quite developed.

Nothing really wrong with the front wing endplates, otherwise FI wouldn't have changed to a Brawnesque style front wing with their upgrade package that clearly worked. The packaging issue caused by the Honda power unit to the Merc one meant 6 inches was cut out of the rear of the chassis and the surrounding components were no longer packed as they were meant. The Honda unit was also slightly taller so the centre of gravity for the car was also affected.