Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2015

[i70q7m7ghw]

Imagining himself driving a Ferrari?

[SiLo]

Imagining himself driving a Ferrari?

I was thinking the same thing. Wonder if he's thinking of 2017?

I'd love to see him go to Ferrari and win another championship to be honest. Would be great.

[FoxHound]

Congratulations to the team on the double! Should be made a double double in a race or so's time.

And yes, the PU106B Merc V6 was mighty throughout the season, so a hearty round of applause to Andy Cowell and his skunkworks at Brixworth HPP.
But mostly, to Aldo Costa and his design team under the management of Paddy Lowe....Grazie Signore Costa!
The W06 was nothing if not the cream of the field at aero tracks(Spa, Suzuka) and chassis tracks (Monaco, Hungary*).

In stats....Mercedes have now won 2 constructors titles in 6 years compared to the 1 title in 18 years of McLaren partnership.
They sit on 35 race victories in 108 starts or 41 from 123 if you account for the older "silberpfeile" GP team.
It's the highest % win success rate of any team excluding the defunct and anomalous Brawn GP.

I'm certain next year won't be as straightforward. Renault have not used any tokens and will make a massive revamp to it's 2016 spec PU, Red Bull will benefit if they can source it. Honda will* sort it's turbo issue and following from that it's energy recovery nightmare, bringing McLaren into the fray. Ferrari can build on their progress and still have tokens available to increase performance of their PU.
There's also the issue of looking forward to 2017, and Mercedes do have a history of looking ahead to take advantage of sizeable rule changes.

Aside from my wish for Merc victories in 2016, I do hope the other teams raise their game and take the fight to them.
Not too much, just enough to make it a contest!

Forza Mercedes!

[SiLo]

Forza Mercedes!

Shouldn't that be Gehen Mercedes?

[Phil]

Nope. Probably more like Hopp Mercedes (though I'm not sure if Hopp is actually more a swiss used expression). Maybe "Marsch Mercedes". Or Mercedes vorwärts!? Mercedes angriff!!?

[FoxHound]

Forza Mercedes!

Shouldn't that be Gehen Mercedes?

Forza works well, has brevity and translates well, whereas "gehen" is is merely "go". "Go Mercedes"? Nah... I also just looked in the Mirror and said...."Gehen" out loud...

I could also have gone the "Holen Sie sich in dort Schönheiten Mercedes" route, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it...

[turbof1]

[SectorOne]

You gotta give them cred for these championships, they outplayed the competition before the first V6-season even started.
They knew they needed a reset of regulations and steered them in the right direction to set it all up for complete total domination.

The competitors only understood the magnitude of what had been done after Australia 2014 and are sh*tting bricks for at least another year knowing that there´s almost certainly will be another year of this destruction.

But then again, Ferrari do look like they are coming and coming strong. The one who lives will find out i guess.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Slightly different thoughts.
1. Even without counting 2014 regulations, Mercedes were on an upward trend which was evident from the REALLY fast car in 2013 that was W04. The only thing that was Achilles heal present in the car's DNA was it's inability to be kind on the tyres. I am sure, with more time, they would have overcome that and would have beaten RB.
2. I am 200% sure that even Mercedes would have been astonished with the job that they had done with new V6 and W05, when they saw the performance in winter testing. But the way RB and Renault came back Australia and almost got the pole in the wet and ended up 2nd (albeit with faulty fuel measurement device). There were all the anticipation of RB striking back after the first flyaways with a BIG barcelona upgrade.
3. The first time the F1 world witnessed the extent of the might of W05, was in Bahrain after the Safety car incident. It was astonishing to see the Mercs ran away at 2 sec/lap difference. After that, the spirits really dipped in the chasing guns.

Finally, Red Bull dominated second half of 2013 after having found some trick which gave them half a second advantage. As it stands, the Mercs are around 8tenths faster in Quali and almost over a second faster in races compared to Ferrari. Unlike the RBs in 2013, Mercedes are wary of reliability issues and believe in controlling the pace, rather than putting on display their ultimate pace.

More than anyone, even more than Ferrari themselves, it's the Mercedes who have been trying to hard sell the idea that the current Ferrari is a match to Mercedes. They need to; as they were threatened by other teams at the beginning of the year about the major overhauling of the regulations that put might have put an end to Mercedes dominance and an unwanted cost to redevelop the newer specification PU/Car. The other teams used this tactic to force Mercedes to agree in season development, which they were successful. The latest PU that Mercedes introduced in Monza is, as defined by Horner, a real monster and Mercedes have kept the ultimate pace under the wraps. It is also the go forward platform for next year, which means more avenues of development.

I am not trying to pull down any team here, but the effort that is required to match Mercedes is unbelievably mammoth and they doesn't seem to be slowing down either as they have strength in all departments; Money, desire, people (in chassis and PU) and two very fast drivers. More than anyone else, Mercedes can afford to spend resources on 2017 spec designs as they already have a great car that can compete in 2016 with much lesser resources to develop further.

Now the dilemma for Ferrari is, whether to concentrate with full potential for 2016 or for 2017. That might just be a big headache right now. Mercs, through Ross Brawn's planning, put together an assembly line working structure where Geoff Willis concentrates on designs for cars, two years' ahead, which means he would be already hands full with 2017. Aldo and his team is responsible for 2016. It was the same back in 2012 when Aldo was hired. He handled W04 (2013), where as Geoff Willis was working on W05 (2014) along with Bob Bell who was taking care of Chassis/PU integration.

Ultimately, F1 needs real competition and at the moment, I can't see where it is coming from, especially, after pushing RB out of competition. [-o<

CONGRATULATIONS FOR MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1 TEAM for clinching back to back World Constructors' Championship. Thoroughly deserved. =D>

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Behind the scenes....

[SunsAnvil]

Maybe I am showing my age but the above video with the overdramtic music played over a bunch of people sat at their computers (missing any real emotions when Nico goes out of Hamilton wins (if it was there I missed it) sums up everything wrong with F1. I want to see gladiators in wheel to wheel action. Not guys sat at their PC for over 2 hours straight!

[Jolle]

For the forth time in two years a Mercedes retires with a very small basic, non performance, component failures. hardware with designs they are racing with for years. It feels like they have more of these problems then other teams.

To improve that, might be their biggest performance step for next year (in the WCC)

[dans79]

Maybe I am showing my age but the above video with the overdramtic music played over a bunch of people sat at their computers (missing any real emotions when Nico goes out of Hamilton wins (if it was there I missed it) sums up everything wrong with F1. I want to see gladiators in wheel to wheel action. Not guys sat at their PC for over 2 hours straight!

Jesus, what do you expect? They are thousands of miles away locked in a room doing their job. That job happens to be looking at data on a computer screen for god knows what, and to react if anything is out of line. Not to mention you are making a huge assumption that the video was actually taken at the exact moments things happened.

The problem with F1 is that a large section of the fan-base has attention deficit disorder, or rose tinted glasses on!

[Shrieker]

For the forth time in two years a Mercedes retires with a very small basic, non performance, component failures. hardware with designs they are racing with for years. It feels like they have more of these problems then other teams.

To improve that, might be their biggest performance step for next year (in the WCC)

I agree with you to an extent. Are the four easy fails you refer to chronologically are; ham spark cover failure in aus'14, ros steering wheel wire failure in singa'14, ham intercooler clamp failure singa '15 and ros throttle pedal dampener in rus'15 ? Were there any other simple failures ? You might have left out some sort of problem with ham's engine in hung'14 race ?

[Gaz.]

If you include qualifying then the fuel coupling for Hamilton in Hungary, brake failure in Germany too.

What was the source of Rosberg's car going AWOL in Abu Dhabi?