89 replies to this topic

[ConsiderAndGo]

I just saw this on Twitter:
 
FA ‏@joseluisf1 9m9 minutes ago
Marko: "It is difficult to prove, but I am sure that Mercedes helped Ferrari" "And we all know why." (vía SportBild)
 
Are his marbles finally starting to roll?

[aramos]

The contents of the tweet are far more interesting than the accusations of him 'losing the plot'.

 

What reasons could he be asserting why?

[FullThrottleF1]

Marko throwing his toy's out of the pram again.   

[Exb]

The contents of the tweet are far more interesting than the accusations of him 'losing the plot'.

What reasons could he be asserting why?

 
There is more about his comments in the Mercedes thread - I've posted Newbrray's comment from that thread as it contains a link to more from Marko:
  

So the real quotes came from Marko (interesting)
 
http://thisisf1.com/...rrari-catch-up/

Dr Helmut Marko has accused Mercedes of actively helping Ferrari to catch the reigning world champions in 2015.
According to Mercedes team chairman Niki Lauda, it is no surprise that Ferrari is much more competitive this year.
“If you look at how much we won last year,” said the F1 legend, “it was clear that it would not always be like that.”
Red Bull official Marko, however, smells a rat.
“It is difficult to prove, but I am sure that Mercedes helped Ferrari,” he told the German magazine Sport Bild. “And we all know why.”
Austrian Marko reportedly senses a political motive, and not just Mercedes’ desire to halt suggestions it is damaging F1 by dominating so easily.
He might also be referring to the engine rules, with Ferrari having now joined Mercedes in backing the current turbo V6 era, even beyond 2017.
Sport Bild suggests Mercedes may even have slowed its own development programme over the winter, and recommended that Ferrari sign up its hybrid specialist Wolf Zimmermann.

 
Although this sounds a bit too Machievellian for me 

Edited by Exb, 24 April 2015 - 11:01.

[SealTheDiffuser]

LOL

 

my thought was RB/TR keeps those Renault PU failing deliberately to drive them out of F1 and bring back the V8

Edited by SealTheDiffuser, 24 April 2015 - 11:03.

[aramos]

 
There is more about his comments in the Mercedes thread - I've posted Newbrray's comment from that thread as it contains a link to more from Marko:
  

interesting. Sounds plausable.

 

It never seemed particularly far fetched that Mercedes purposely threw Malaysia either to take some pressure off them.

[goingthedistance]

Honestly, I could believe it. Mercedes need some semblance of competitiveness. 

 

Marko is straight shooting to the point of crassness sometimes, but I wouldn't actually call him paranoid or inventive based on previous comments. 

[v@sh]

I thought Marko was more referring to Ferrari pinching Merc's hybrid guy? Didn't Ferrari hire a whole bunch of Merc engine guys to help them improve their PU?

[Les]

Has Helmut Marko lost the plot? Oh yeah, many, many years ago.

[ViMaMo]

Bernie, Lauda, Helmut ..... jollygood fellows. 

[Risil]

Divide and conquer.

[Brackets]

So Ferrari would 'sign up' to collusion which guarantees more of the same Mercedes tonking!?

[Gyno]

Lost the plot....or maybe he is just telling us the truth of the things that goes on behind the scenes.

 

Ferrari threathend  last year that they are gonna push for the V8's to come back, merc wanted to silence them and gave Ferrari some engine data to keep them quiet.

 

It's just like the "We will leave F1" threath Ferrari always does when it want more Money from the uncle Bernie.

[FerrariV12]

I thought Marko was more referring to Ferrari pinching Merc's hybrid guy? Didn't Ferrari hire a whole bunch of Merc engine guys to help them improve their PU?

 

Staff move about all the time. Unless Mercedes went out of their way to arrange this and he/they are effectively on loan from Merc to Ferrari, then they helped Ferrari no more than Williams helped McLaren to become competitive in 1998.

[Rob]

If you're going to take an accusation like that public, you need evidence. And all he has is speculation.

 

It's deeply unprofessional. And sounds like sour grapes.

[LuckyStrike1]

Helmut Marko would fit in great on a forum like this. 

[MastaKink]

Ferrari signed a load of engineers from Mercedes that undoubtedly helped them become competitive, especially on the ERS side of things but I doubt there is some big conspiracy.  I find it very hard to believe Merc would suggest or help another team get that close to them after all the money and time they have pumped into these regs.  Plus these signings were made when Alonso was still at Ferrari, there's no way they would let a driver whose probably at least on par with Lewis, get that close.

 

And also to the best of my knowledge Zimmerman left Mercedes after falling out with one of the bosses and that was sometime in 2011/2 because he was at Lotus at that time IIRC. Not sure how much critical knowledge of the workings of the 2014 PU that Merc homologated he could possess.  I could be way wrong about this though.

[jannyg]

Interesting. Ferrari have made unbelievable gains

[Jimisgod]

He had marbles to lose?

[Ian G]

Helmut Marko would fit in great on a forum like this. 

 

Yep..especially the Mark Webber "greatest driver never to win a WDC" thread.

[HP]

Still how does this explain that Renault is so far behind? ... and the Red Bull are plagued by other car problems as well..

[steferrari]

I always thought that this guy uses to talk a bit too much.

[SanDiegoGo]

i'm sure the truth lay somewhere in all the wild speculation, whether or not it's of dubious nature will likely never be known. but marko is just using this to muddy the waters and take pressure of his own team/s. it's all good traditional F1 politics. mis/dis-infomation is regularly used to destabilize other teams/drivers. he'd be doing his team a dis service if he didn't pounce on any rumour that excuses his teams poor performance.

[Diablobb81]

Maybe Merc renounced the gardening leave for the guys that moved.

[doc83]

Why so many people think it’s unrealistic. The same goes for Malaysia.
Mercedes will do everything to protect their advantage and investment. They would be stupid to lap everyone with a car that is 3 sec faster 2 years in a row.
RB was much batter in hiding their real advantage.

[Nonesuch]

Allow me to once more cite the following research article: 'Does it take one to know one? (2011)'

 

 

In two studies, we found that individuals were more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they thought they would be willing, personally, to participate in the alleged conspiracies. Study 1 established an association between conspiracy beliefs and personal willingness to conspire, which fully mediated a relationship between Machiavellianism and conspiracy beliefs. In Study 2, participants primed with their own morality were less inclined than controls to endorse conspiracy theories - a finding fully mediated by personal willingness to conspire. These results suggest that some people think 'they conspired' because they think 'I would conspire'.

 

Until he names names and gets us some actual information to work with, Marko might as well keep quiet and focus on bringing his team back up to speed.

 

We do know for certain that Ferrari has hired some high-profile people to strengthen their engine department, the mentioned Zimmerman being one of them, and we also know from comments by Luca Marmorini that Ferrari purposefully compromised its 2014 engine for aerodynamic benefit. That they have made a step forward isn't too surprising, though the degree to which they have might be.

[pdac]

With Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault all against Red Bull, why are they bothering. They might as well get out right now.

[Atreiu]

The contents of the tweet are far more interesting than the accusations of him 'losing the plot'.

 

What reasons could he be asserting why?

 

Everybody hates Red Bull.

[kimster89]

Marko is the definition of ********.

[Cacarella]

Why so many people think it’s unrealistic. The same goes for Malaysia.
Mercedes will do everything to protect their advantage and investment. They would be stupid to lap everyone with a car that is 3 sec faster 2 years in a row.
RB was much batter in hiding their real advantage.

 

Yes, they'd do anything.  Including give technical data to one of their main rivals whom they would have no information about what else said rival might have in the pipeline.

Seems pretty risky to me.  Especially if you're trying to protect your investment. 

 

Why not just run a more conservative engine map?

 

I MIGHT believe it if someone insinuated that Mercedes was helping Williams, seeing as they're a customer and have ties to Toto.  But helping Ferrari?  That would be beyond stupid.

Edited by Cacarella, 24 April 2015 - 15:20.

[bub]

Seems a bit paranoid to me. Why couldn't Ferrari have just figured things out on their own without Mercedes' help?

 

Even if this were true I don't think it really matters. Red Bull/Renault would still have done a poor job relative to Mercedes and would still be much slower than them.

[jestaudio]

I think Marko needs to be a little more careful, what he has said is very close to accusing 2 teams cheating, frankly I'm sick of his sour grapes and shitty attitude now RB are not waltzing away the championship, maybe RB need to piss off from F1 if its that bad and sell the team to someone who races for sake of it instead of promoting a sickly teeth rotting can of crap

[Blutto]

 

It never seemed particularly far fetched that Mercedes purposely threw Malaysia either to take some pressure off them.

 

The official name for the Merc team is Mercedes AMG Petronas.

 

Petronas is a Malaysian state owned oil company and I doubt they would throw the race in Malaysia. Its like a home race for them seeing how the German GP is a non event this year.

 

If they want to throw a race, then they would choose either Spain (Santander) or Monza.

Edited by Blutto, 24 April 2015 - 16:26.

[P123]

Damnit, they got to Renault too!

http://www.autosport....php/id/117996/

[MikeV1987]

The funniest part is some people on here will think its true and and begin posting as if its a fact.

[UPRC]

Helmut Marko is now one of my favourite stand-up comedians. Guy's got a great sense of humour.   

 

... and I have no idea why my text looks like this. Huh.

Edited by UPRC, 24 April 2015 - 17:03.

[SanDiegoGo]

The funniest part is some people on here will think its true and and begin posting as if its a fact.

 

same thing happened with the FIA helped mercedes to dominate "story."

 

formula one is a sea of agendas and rumour. the truth doesn't matter most of the time.

Edited by SanDiegoGo, 24 April 2015 - 17:17.

[Kristian]

Renault were the manufacturer that threatened to quit if hybrid engines weren't brought into F1. I think this is just paranoia to be honest. 

[Watkins74]

interesting. Sounds plausable.

 

It never seemed particularly far fetched that Mercedes purposely threw Malaysia either to take some pressure off them.

 

I am stunned that some people could believe this.

[KarlCson]

Maybe Merc renounced the gardening leave for the guys that moved.

I have NO idea wether there was some party bargaining or not between MB and SF, but me too found it quite odd -to say least- that a whole bunch of engineers was let go withouth gardening (if was?)..From sporting point of view it wouldn't have made any sense at all, but political- and- businesswise the more.

[pdac]

I am stunned that some people could believe this.

 

If your favourite team or driver is not winning and your least favourite team and driver are winning there has to be a reason (other than on the day, that lot were better than your lot)

[JHSingo]

It happens to the best of them after they spend too long in F1.

[HoldenRT]

Did he ever have the plot?

[Knowlesy]

Marko lost it decades ago.

An absolute arse of a man.

[Crossmax]

[AlexS]

interesting. Sounds plausable.

 

It never seemed particularly far fetched that Mercedes purposely threw Malaysia either to take some pressure off them.

 

 

Well..... they would need help from Williams too since they ended 70 seconds from Ferrari in Malaysia

 

Are Williams also part of the conspiracy?

Edited by AlexS, 24 April 2015 - 19:48.

[ninetyzero]

Did he ever have the plot?

 

No, the man has less plot than a Michael Bay movie.

[SHODAN]

So instead of simply driving slower, Mercedes gave Ferrari free tech?

 

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[Nemo1965]

Incredible. About thirty years ago there were three persons in F1 I really admired in F1: Luca Cordero di Montezemolo , Helmut Marko and Niki Lauda. The first two have just grown into vindictive, paranoid, sore losers. Only 'The Rat' has stayed true. 

 

Wow.

[Schumacher7]

He had marbles to lose?

No, no, no, you've misread. We all know we know he doesn't have any marbles, what we're trying to ascertain here is whether he's lost the plot.