Why Mercedes -schumacher duo failed

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from 9:10-9:30 !!

in my view this summerizes very good the best quality of schumacher, one i havent seen so strongly underlined in any other driver, namely:

"you only need to give michael schumacher the wimp of victory and he seizes it with with both hands and delivers"


and thats exactly what mercedes never gave him except for the qualifying in Monaco 2012. even when the car was fast it was unreliable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2012 03:39PM by mitadumapaga.

the link doesn't seem to work mate.

fixed

A good example of Schumacher's ability to press on, but your choice of video is a bit poor in that it also shows - at 5:34 - the flipside of his style...

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To this day I still don't think Schumacher knew he was there. He was clearly in his blindspot, and you can see Schumacher looking in his mirror exiting the pitlane.

Also in modern F1 he would have got 3 penalties in that race, one for speeding in the pitlane, possibly one for overtaking hill off the track (looks like all 4 wheels are off to me) and for the Frentzen thing. Plus both Mclarens died and the field is a lot closer now then it was in 98. I don´t think its just that Mercedes aren´t fast enough or whatever, it is a lots of little things that make it a different sport to what it was back then.

It's a combination of factors.
F1 changed a lot during the time Schumacher was away - it wasn't the same as most 3-year periods in the sport's history. It was like stopping driving in 1993 and making a comeback in 1997 - he would've struggled to get to grips with the changes in the sport then too, any driver would.
He came back with a new team, one that was strange to him and one that wasn't built around him.
Also, the Mercedes so far has been less competitive than any of the cars he drove during his first career.
Add up those things alone, and it's no wonder he's found it a struggle - not to me anyway.

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I think he was and is good and certainly worthy of his feats. Last year I would have said he was not 'that' great but still obviously a great.

This year, the points do not suggest but he has been consistently quicker than Nico IMO and his pole at Monaco was something spectacular. Of all tracks to get pole he did it there.

After 2009 you wouldn't be crazy to say the team with Mercedes backing could get more wins over the next two-three years. Maybe not titles but certainly more than a few podiums and a couple of wins.

Schumacher has not underperformed given his circumstances. The team have. He took time to get upto speed but once there it was clear the team were not moving as quick as he was.

Why did the partnership fail? It took a while for Schumacher to adjust, but most importantly the team did not provide.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

I just saw this from Alex Zanardi's Twitter feed:

alex zanardi ‏@lxznr
Imercedes problem has been all but Michael speed. too bad clock's ticking fast for him. Come on old kaiser! Make us proud once more in 2012

I hope he manages to get a seat next year, he's still got it imo. Ferrari, Sauber, even Williams, would be good.

Apparently he'd be welcome at Sauber if he wanted to go there - and their cars have certainly been no less competitive than Mercedes.
If he stays in F1 I'd like to see him in the best possible car, which means Ferrari - the irony of him going back there...

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very interesting thoughts guys, as always. thanx for giving your views on the whole situation. here's another thing i would like to share with you. i hope i dont sound very biased but it is how i see things right now, namely:

niki lauda, who as we all know has a new role at the Mercedes Team, has been quoted saying:

"When Lewis joins, it's a big change for everybody there," he added. "It's high motivation as they all know that if they don't give him a decent car he will not win."

i understand this whole statement in the way that because lewis is coming tO MERC. the team will push harder to give him a better car. For me personally this statement is acceptable only for pretty incompetent people watching our beloved sport. If you are mercedes and claim that you are the best, or aim at being the best, then your staff (technicians, designers, mechanics, strategists, race engineers etc.) is expected to push to the maximum and give its utmost at all the time and not only when you sign a new driver.

SECOND:

"The most important thing now is that [team principal] Ross [Brawn] and his team realises all the things that are wrong on this car and make a better car next year - the chances are very good. A lot of changes have been done." and in addition to it comes this statement form niki lauda: ", if Schumacher couldn't get the Mercedes team running up front for three years and you next year are doing much better it makes a huge impact on your personality and people will rate you much higher"

yeah, so what do we conclude:

a lot of changes regarding the car problems have already been made. without having insights those changes do include the recruitment of a new staff (geoff willis, bob bell etc.) and of course the ffedback that nico and schumacher (with all due respect not hamilton) have given the team. So if hamilton goes faster next year, good for him. But if nicos car also goes faster than wouldnt it mean that hamilton actually just takes the fruits from the team's efforts so far. (efforts wchich unfortuantelly have only produced a car good enough for 8th place in average for the last 3 years)

and a third statemnt from mr. niki lauda (who i personally rate very high, dont get me wrong, i only criticise what he has stated):

"If the car is competitive, and this possible, then he will win races, there is no question about it."

which rosberg and schumacher also did at china, monaco and.... oh wait, your car was no better than a top 5 at any other race for the last 36 months.

All in all very dissatisfying statemts from mr. lauda and very inconvincing about the mercedes' vision and goal, or rather the lack of those. And without the right goals we all know that succes is unachiavable. no wonder the team only has 5 podiums and a win for over 50 races now.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2012 01:01AM by mitadumapaga.

honestly, i wouldn't look too much into it, it's just PR

i mean, Mercedes is not going to change just because Lewis is coming, no, what's done is done for next year, but Nikki NEEDS to justify the new boy in the house.

Sergio Perez will most likely fight for wins next year as well, probably even more than Hamilton. Mercedes have not produced a regular front runner car since it was named BAR.

the way i see it lewis could be following the footsteps of good old Jaques.

Quote
Slash
Sergio Perez will most likely fight for wins next year as well, probably even more than Hamilton. Mercedes have not produced a regular front runner car since it was named BAR.

You could argue that they haven't since the mid-70s, though I suspect all that was carried over from Tyyrell to BAR was the entry.

I wonder if anyone there actually was in the team during 1990's Tyrrell?


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

danm Wrote:
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> I wonder if anyone there actually was in the team
> during 1990's Tyrrell?

I suspect most of them made the jump over to the aborted Honda project...

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

As some people have been saying else where.

Lewis is faster than Button, Button was finishing 2nd and 3rd years back in BAR so where would Lewis have been? Was the car really that bad?

Lewis was faster than Nico when they were together, so again has everything been got out the Merc this year and last year?

Time will tell but maybe things are not as bad as they look in that team.

For MS it just took to long to get back up to speed and thats why I think it went wrong. Kimi said MS sent them the wrong way in development when he was still testing the Ferrari. MS always relied on testing to get up to speed and to get the car 100% how he wanted, tyres made just for him engine maps just for him. He could no longer do that and he was not number 1. Maybe just maybe MS is not as good as people thought?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2012 09:30AM by marcl.

I agree that he was made to look better by having a team which was built round him and a teammate who was obligated to be his #2, and that's been highlighted since he came back. That's one of the things I was getting at too.

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I think in fairness, back in the day when Schumacher was dominating, had any other driver (except for maybe Hakkinen) had the resource of what he had a Ferrari, I doubt that they could have got the continued, relentless success that he got.

Conversely he came into F1 and beat everyone who partnered him, from his debut in a Jordan and a triple world champion, before he barely even had a reputation.

It's a shame that he's never been team-mate to a genuine top-class driver, but over time how many multiple world champions have partnered a another multiple world champion? It's a very rare thing. We accept that Button was signed by McLaren as he wasn't expected to be a real threat to Hamilton, but rather an ideal teammate, and really, in the past few years, that sums it up. It's a rarity that two champions are even in the same team, let alone multiple champions.

Senna and Prost. I'm struggling to think of any other ones.
In fairness, he's also beaten Nico on a fairly regular basis. Nico might have consistently finished ahead on points over a season, but that doesn't accurately reflect how it's been in races in a straight fight.

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