20758 replies to this topic

[ivand911]

What a stupid line. You might as well say the same about MS. If he hadn't tried to gain places at the start he wouldn't have got hit.

Oh, yes, now the collateral victims are at fault?? Michael have all track clear ahead of him, and suddenly RG going strongly to the left and hit him? That guy should learn to drive forward not sidewise.

[BRK]

What a stupid line. You might as well say the same about MS. If he hadn't tried to gain places at the start he wouldn't have got hit.

Only one of them ended up looking like an idiot, though. I think the trick is to gain places at the start and stay in the race without losing control, which seems to be a difficult task for all the GP2 graduates on the grid. Maybe if Grosjean had 294 starts to his name he would've got it right.

It was a start line incident plain and simple. Monaco, in years past, has been notorious for that. And Schumacher is surely not on the receiving end of second rate anything. His run of bad luck has served him no good at all, but to imply that Mercedes his giving him second tier treatment is a bit shallow don't you think?

This is a really dumb post from someone who should know better. I know you're not stupid enough to try to explain how/why M-B team are giving Michael second rate equipment and service. I can understand your disappointment at opportunities lost but it is most assuredly luck. Sometimes luck is with you, sometimes against you. Michael has had plenty of good luck in the past, it all comes around over time. Once a Ferrari driver qualified on the front row almost every race of the season and never won a race, mainly a string of DNFs. Now that's bad luck.

I would point out that the act of crashing into Senna in Spain effectively wrecked TWO of his six races anyway.

Legitimate points of view that I would have agreed with a few races ago, I'm not so sure any more. It's logical to accord preferential treatment to his teammate who is 50 odd points ahead of him in the standings, but it's also true that Schumacher would have been closer to (or even ahead of) his teammate had he had a problem-free start to the season.

[Ferrari_F1_fan_2001]

Before 2012 the pressure was on Schumacher's back to deliver. In 2012, his performances have been very good, his speed very good and his qualifying greatly improved. In short, he has raised him game considerably.

Now, it is up to Mercedes to deliver a car that is both fast AND reliable so BOTH drivers can take as much points as possible. In 2010, MS let himself down. In 2011 it was a mixture of both. In 2012 at has largely been Mercedes not giving reliable equipment to at least ONE of their drivers. 11 DNF's over 2.5 years for Schumacher is very poor indeed.

Like I keep saying, Mercedes' image suffers more than anything else; their image, brand cache, kudos and bragging rights all suffer if they can't produce reliable cars. Toyota and Honda realised they couldn't do it and left the sport in embarrasment. I hope Mercedes doesn't do the same.

Not only this, but in the eyes of many, Mercedes will be seen as the ones who let Schumacher down and in some quarters that could mean villification, especially if Schumacher starts saying things towards the end of the season about the lack of support/good equipment etc. IIRC in 2010 he came out with the statement that him and Nico didn't have equal equipment in some races and Haug had to be forced into admitting this some weeks later.

Anyway; Mercedes need to raise their game. This reminds me very much of Mclaren and the ill-fated run of bad luck with the self detonating Mercedes engines in the early 2000's.

Edited by Ferrari_F1_fan_2001, 01 June 2012 - 09:12.

[spacekid]

Much has been made of Michaels bad luck, and how his Mercedes keeps failing him. I'd like to try to blow some of this talk of either sabotage or bias, or Mercedes simply doing a duff job for Michael out of the water.

In Melbourne Michaels gear box failed. We don't know the exact nature of the failure. It could have been a physical component in the box itself that had a slight manufacturing defect (this may not even be something made by Mercedes, I'm sure some parts are sourced in) - such a component could easily have been in Nico's car. The only way I can really pin the blame on Michaels team is if the failure was related to the installation of the gearbox or a mistake in its operation. I find this unlikely.

In Malaysia Mercedes gave Schumi a good car, he got tapped by another car in tricky conditions. He isn't the only one.

In China the wheel nut failed to go on properly. Lewis' team has had this problem as well. Do Mercedes use the same crew for both Michael and Nico? If so (and I think they do) it wasn't a mistake by someone working just for Michael, it could have happened to either driver. Also I'm not sure with these wheel nut problems if the mistake is made by the mechanic, or if it is an inherent design feature of how the wheel nut gun works. I remember at the time Gary Anderson mentioning that Mercedes and McLaren are using a new system of wheel nut which is faster, but where if it fails its much harder to fix. Changing a wheel in under 3 seconds is not easy and it seems the wheel nut system is one operating on the margins of reliability.

The DRS failure in Bahrain was an odd one, as we have seen this with Michaels car before. I can't think of a good reason for this.

In Spain Mercedes gave Schumi a good car. Beware inexperienced drivers with shot tyres.

In Monaco Mercedes gave Schumi the fastest car (or at worst about level with Red Bull). It seems remotely possible but very unlikely that Schumi's car failure was caused by the collision with RJ. Again not sure of the specifics, but fuel pickup maybe an electronic sensor issue? Again very difficult to know whether to pin the blame on Merc for poor installation or QC, or whether its just an unfortuate failure of 3rd party electronic part that sometimes randomly occurs.

Michael has had some bad luck, but I'm not really seeing proof of any systemic failures from Mercedes. I can see an argument that they might be exercising poor quality control, but I refuse to believe this would be particular only to Michaels equipment, or that a professional outfit would take shortcuts like this.

[MikeTekRacing]

Michael has had some bad luck, but I'm not really seeing proof of any systemic failures from Mercedes.

Mercedes IS responsible, as a team for the whole package - car, operations (pit stop execution, blunders with fuel, tyres etc).
the fact that the fuel pump could be produced by a 3rd party yet mercedes installed it correctly so it's not their fault is not ok. they are responsible for whatever goes on the car, may it be a pump, a fuse, a spark plug or a gearbox.

they failed really really bad this year, way too many screw ups

[Schumacher7]

Mercedes IS responsible, as a team for the whole package - car, operations (pit stop execution, blunders with fuel, tyres etc).
the fact that the fuel pump could be produced by a 3rd party yet mercedes installed it correctly so it's not their fault is not ok. they are responsible for whatever goes on the car, may it be a pump, a fuse, a spark plug or a gearbox.

they failed really really bad this year, way too many screw ups

That's a really stupid thing to say imo, they have no way of knowing, it looks no different to any of the other identical components they've had over the years, how are they meant to know it will fail, they can't possibly, it's not their fault, you cannot blame the team for something that is effectively out of their control, sure they could have used a different part but they would have had no reason to do so as as far as the human eye could tell the part was fine. It'll come good in the end, they just need to keep at it.

[spacekid]

That's a really stupid thing to say imo, they have no way of knowing, it looks no different to any of the other identical components they've had over the years, how are they meant to know it will fail, they can't possibly, it's not their fault, you cannot blame the team for something that is effectively out of their control, sure they could have used a different part but they would have had no reason to do so as as far as the human eye could tell the part was fine. It'll come good in the end, they just need to keep at it.

This is exactly my point. We don't know with these parts what the expected degree of quality control is amongst teams, and whether these failures could be predicted, or are entirely random. Mercedes have screwed up if they missed something, otherwise its possible those parts could just of easily gone on Nicos car or maybe even someone elses in another team. Then it really is just bad luck.

[ivand911]

Fuel pickup problem can mean 100 things. From fuel filter, to pump problem, to problem in fuel tank ,to piping problem , to fuel problem. Was this new engine? I guess not, it is slower track ,so they can use some older engine. Still this engines are used for last 2-3 years, so all parts are very reliable, so for him to have "engine" problem is over the top of any bad luck.

Edited by ivand911, 01 June 2012 - 10:40.

[Gilles4Ever]

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