Mercedes AMG F1 Team 2012

[raymondu999]

I think Michael probably could outscore Nico this season. Reason being I'm still not convinced in Nico - he's overrated IMO. The Schumacher that Nico has beat for the past two years has simply not been the Schumacher that dominated his teammates in the past.

And this is coming from someone who was a Hakkinen/Raikkonen fan back in the Schumacher years

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Nico may be average, but his record against Schumacher says he is better.

Faster, more consistent and less racing incidents. Those are the facts.

[prince]

Those who regard Nico as a good racing driver watch these links. He is simply incapable of defending his positions. I really don't understand how he can match the agression of Hamilton, Alonso and Schumacher (of old). He is simply too safe a driver and thats why he is incident free. I couldn't find one great manauvre that Nico did that I could pull from youtube.

This is turkey 2011. Agreed that the other cars had better speed, but there was no intent from rosberg to hold them. It was an easy passing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAteeLEvpac

This is crazy, Monaco 2011. At such a tight circuit, he could not hold his position from Massa, who was struggling himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNzmjUSKr8U

[marcush.]

I dont understand why Marcush.

Rosberg has just been better than Schumacher. There have been odd occasions when Schuamcher has looked his old self(Spa 2011). But the trend is certainly that Rosberg outqualfies and outscores Schumacher.

And Schumacher has won 90 odd Gps, where does that put Rosberg? When the Ferrari was poor, Schuamcher still beat his team mates....

I put it to you that you are hoping Schumacher outscores Rosberg, due to past allegiances. Schumacher outscoring Rosberg this year is based on nothing we have learnt these last 2 years.

The numbers tell me that Rosberg has an edge over Schumacher in Qualy ,and it was impossible for him to translate this into an advantage come race day

As for Rosberg outscoring Schumacher-that´s certainly true for 2011 :8 to 1 point scores but last year it´s 4 to 4 rosberg managed to stay in front of Schumacher as often as Schumacher ended the race in front when both scored points..Rosberg was lucky to stay in front in the points table.
rosberg had a Qualy position advanatge no question about that .Sometimes he was barely a tenth quicker sometimes it was more than a second.But apart from that it was a level fight.We have to remember the points difference was the equal of one fourth place finish...in old money that was 3points....

[raymondu999]

Nico may be average, but his record against Schumacher says he is better.

I'd like to make the distinction that his record so far says he is better than COMEBACK Schumacher. I doubt he'd get close to peak Schumacher

[Mestrades]

Yesterday I spoke with a catalan engineer of Williams (Xevi Pujolar) and he told me that probably (90% sure) the current order of the grid is: RBR, Mclaren & Mercedes

[Cocles]

Nico may be average, but his record against Schumacher says he is better.

Faster, more consistent and less racing incidents. Those are the facts.

One driver would set up his car well for qualifying, then would spend the race safely behind the top three teams.

One driver would set up his car well for racing, then would climb in position, but leave himself much more open to incidents.

Split those two strategies between too equally skilled race car drivers, and you'd end up with what we saw between Nico and Schumi in 2011. I see a lot of cherry picking going on when it comes to facts. The Nico fans are quick to talk about qualifying, but I haven't seen one mention Schumi being the top over-taker for 2011. There are plenty of facts like that going in both directions.

At the end of the day, I see them as either evenly matched this season, or Schumacher will continue to improve and finally overtake Nico. If Nico can prove he's capable of driving like a jerk to hold a position (like Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso, and Schumacher all have), I might change my mind.

[raymondu999]

For me personally what matters is just the result at the end of the race (bar any reliability question marks). If a driver qualifies rubbish; but can race well enough - either through good execution of a strategy; or through overtakes - to mask it; then his rubbish qualifying doesn't matter much to me. On the other hand if a driver gets 19 poles a year but can't hold it in a race then that qualifying still means nothing. At the end of the day it's only your position on the last lap that counts

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Marcush


You said you expected Schumacher to beat Rosberg this year. Since they have been in the same team, I see no reason why this should be the case.

Other than hope.

[marcush.]

jet ,let´s wait and see ...my predictions formula1 usually fail as they are dominated by my wishes... but honestly speaking i can´t see Schumacher being content with second this year.Maybe he is not sure within himself about his speed of today ....he has not signed yet even though the team now seems to be on the right track.

[Dragonfly]

The aim of Schumacher is with a collective effort from the whole team to reach the level for challenging for wins and eventually for the title, everything else is too low for his status.
The aim of Rosberg is to beat Schumacher at any cost, which is short sighted.
I think if the car is good enough with real prospect to fight for the front we'll see a different Schumacher.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The driver does not design the car.

He is at the mercy of the technical department. There is a fantasy here that suggests a certain driver can actually develop a car beyond that of what engineers could.

The reality is a driver can only give feedback on what works and what does not. Look at McLaren, Button and Hamilton both run different set ups, but if there is an issue they converge to the other drivers set up. Somethings work for a certain driver, and some things dont. Depends what the team bring to the car.

My opinion of Schumacher has not changed since he rejoined with Mercedes. He is still a great, and one of the top 3 of all time IMO.
But the reality is he is 43 years old. We should celebrate that he can live with Rosberg at his age. He cannot beat Rosberg presently and that may change. But its certainly not to do with the idea that Schumacher is running a development car and Rosberg gets to race.

They are equals at Mercedes, the first time in Schumacher's career that he has had a team mate with equal status to himself within a team for a given amount of time.
If the W03 is a winner, Schumacher has the potential to win and beat Rosberg. But, equally, Rosberg has the potential to beat him. That Schuamcher has the grace to take it all on his considerable chin has endeared him more to me.
I reckon he has won over alot more detractors in the last 2 years because of that.
But we cannot ignore the last 2 seasons. Schumacher was undone, pure and simple. But this was in a mediocre car, who knows what will happen this year but I would bet Rosberg would still out-qualify him and finish ahead of him during races.

I wish that not to be the case, but Im not going to say it will happen because that dear friends is wishful thinking.

[Cocles]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/ma ... -interview

Awesome article.

[Mr.S]

The driver does not design the car.

He is at the mercy of the technical department. There is a fantasy here that suggests a certain driver can actually develop a car beyond that of what engineers could.

The reality is a driver can only give feedback on what works and what does not. Look at McLaren, Button and Hamilton both run different set ups, but if there is an issue they converge to the other drivers set up. Somethings work for a certain driver, and some things dont. Depends what the team bring to the car.

My opinion of Schumacher has not changed since he rejoined with Mercedes. He is still a great, and one of the top 3 of all time IMO.
But the reality is he is 43 years old. We should celebrate that he can live with Rosberg at his age. He cannot beat Rosberg presently and that may change. But its certainly not to do with the idea that Schumacher is running a development car and Rosberg gets to race.

They are equals at Mercedes, the first time in Schumacher's career that he has had a team mate with equal status to himself within a team for a given amount of time.
If the W03 is a winner, Schumacher has the potential to win and beat Rosberg. But, equally, Rosberg has the potential to beat him. That Schuamcher has the grace to take it all on his considerable chin has endeared him more to me.
I reckon he has won over alot more detractors in the last 2 years because of that.
But we cannot ignore the last 2 seasons. Schumacher was undone, pure and simple. But this was in a mediocre car, who knows what will happen this year but I would bet Rosberg would still out-qualify him and finish ahead of him during races.

I wish that not to be the case, but Im not going to say it will happen because that dear friends is wishful thinking.

My view is that since Michael on merit could never beat Rosberg even once during the Qualy session apart from incidents like Suzuka & Monaco like stuff,then Nico should ideally atleast have double the number of points than Michael. While Michael has 6 DNF's Nico has 2,Michael has to muscle his way through slower cars or cars on a similar pace to Mercedes' while Nico can speed up in free terrirory & obviously he gets the first preference in pit stop as he runs ahead.

I think Nico is as quick as anybody in Qualy pace,even Vettel because I refuse to believe that W02 was within 1s off RBR in Abu Dhabhi after being more than 2s down in Singapore. But the question is WDC is not won on Speed or 1 Lap Speed alone. It is not. There are a lot of other things. I doubt if Nico has the "X" factor. If Mercedes have a car which is 0.5 quicker than anyone else no doubt Nico can be WDC.

But I want to see what happens when Mercedes is in similar pace to RBR & Mclaren. Does Nico have what it takes??? I doubt it,but then from Mercedes' point of view its better if he has since Michael's days are numbered & he is 43 now anyway.

[MGPW03]

Yesterday I spoke with a catalan engineer of Williams (Xevi Pujolar) and he told me that probably (90% sure) the current order of the grid is: RBR, Mclaren & Mercedes

I think there is an overall consensus on the grid order as you have described. There is also general consensus that grid is more tightly packed.

I personally believe that whatever the order, the gap between RBR, McLaren and Mercedes is small and given the tyre degradation this season, pit stop strategy is going to be critical. So much so that I think it will ultimately decide who is going to to be winner on given day. After having confirmed reliability and pace early on, Mercedes has been totally focused on understanding tyre behavior and thereby working on the maximum possible benefit that it could obtain with its pit stop strategy. I mean emphasis on pit stop strategy has been lot more in the case of Mercedes than any other team.