From a Mclaren employee: @cmckinleyF1 all their staff are working 7 days a week to build all new apart from chassis!!!!!! 2:51 AM Mar 1st via Echofon in reply to cmckinleyF1 Mercedes are building a new car!!! #F1 2:43 AM Mar 1st via Twitter for BlackBerry® http://twitter.com/RealSimonB I seriously did not think Mercedes was going to quite go this crazy when it came to their upgrades, but the buzz is apparently they are. Insanity.
I will say this, and it may shock some of you (TIfosi12!), but it's not like the MB didn't need a major major overhaul anyway to be competitive. They need to make up a great big gap.
I'm not shocked: You downplayed their performance in recent posts and stated that they need a major upgrade. And I agreed. My earlier comments were in regards to the German Unions and their political influence on MB's board of directors. It is not about the F1 team in England working overtime but about wasting money on an F1 endeavour when the German Mercedes worker are let go or get only partially paid (for partial work, aka Kurzarbeit). Nice try though...
You fanatical? No way. Seriously, I noticed the change in tone of your reporting about the MBs' testing. Which reflects a change in belief/outlook of the team's chances. That's because you are serious about your observations. I have no problem with a fan changing his/her prediction based on what they see. I only have "problems" when fans go gaga without any supporting facts or even when the supporting facts point completely into the opposite direction. That said, this is Sutil's year to win the title. I know so because his mother told me.
This actually sounds like a clever Ross Brawn strategy. Because the tires are the biggest variable this year (kers & the adjustable wing are equal amongst cars), mb obviously decided for a basic car. It seems like the tests were for reliability, mileage etc, but more importantly getting alot of valuable tire data. With three tests done , then throw every available resource to develop the rest of the car around the tire data collected. Of course all teams are analyzing the data, but it seems like - as ferraripilot pointed out a long time ago - their cars were much more finished than MB's.... If so - a brillaint strategy...
I don't think Mercedes (the car company, not F1 team) is hurting for $. Anyway, they better get going on a new design if theyre going to beat Toro Rosso!!
Well, the homologated chassis remains the same. It's pretty much all the bodywork and aero which is completely different. I suspect we will not see 100% of what they are up to until Melbourne? Maybe. Testing will obviously be important. Really, it's a brilliant strategy but incredibly difficult and $$$$ to pull off. If they do, I don't think anyone will be calling this the former Bar/Honda team any longer.
Major preseason/post-test re-dos are not uncommon. If the tub remains the same the changes they can make are limited.
Yes that's definitely true. That leaves the wings, sidepods, airbox cover, engine cover, turning vanes, and barge boards. Still, that's a ton of manufacturing and potentially game changing stuff if the overall balance of the car is good to begin with.
As we've seen even the wheelbase can be altered (and so weight distribution) by redoing the suspension arms. A major modification without changing the tub. The tricky bit is integration. A new bit in one place cascades to multiple redesigns elsewhere.
from Brawn today Brawn said the team have something quite different for Barcelona: Were as quietly confident as we can be. We think our strategy is correct to operate the way we have. We will know when we get to the first race. Its pretty difficult to judge where everyone is. I think at the last test at Barcelona we had a go at running low fuel and super-soft tyres and we were the second-quickest car. But I dont think thats where we are overall. I think were about a second off where we want to be. And where we want to be is mixing it at the front. So weve got to find a second in the upgrade. Which we think we can do but you never know what other people are going to do as well. Everybodys going to have new bits at Barcelona. If somebody does come through with a radical innovation that none of the other teams have thought about then it can change things. Weve set out our plan, well know when we get to Melbourne whether the plan was right. Its fun to speculate at the moment but its very difficult.
Not to rain on your parade but the fact that they are rebuilding the aero around the car at this point is bad. They won't have much opportunity to test this and perfect the car for the season. Also that they have something significant for Barcelona is a bad sign: They're basically writing off the start to the season. This reminds me of Ferrari last year where they said right from the start that they weren't happy with the car (which despite all that did surprisingly well at first, but that's another story) and had it replaced by the begin of the Euro season. If you are top notch and lucky you then end up with a great car, but you have already lost a lot of ground. Not to put too fine a point on it, but what happened to that theory, that MB is months ahead of the competition because they stopped development on their 2010 car mid season (after they run out of money from the oh-so-rich MB company)? Turns out that the teams who were so absorbed in the 2010 WDC fight are the ones leading the pack into the new season. Just saying.
