Why are Mercedes so successful?

Of course you mean getting rid of Schumacher in order to let Kimi driver for SF !?!
Yes?

 

My reply was about German cars.

 

I always liked when minardi scores a few points or Vettel toro Rosso win. Got love the underdogs


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But you worded it in such a way that it also applied to Italian cars and drivers from a slightly different era.

 

Methinks the changing of the guard was NO accident.

 

Well, many of those German wins were without opposition, to be fair. German manufacturers usually work with way higher budgets. And to be fair too, Germans run away when things get nasty for them.

Porsche most of all has a tendency to "disagree" with the rules and quit when it suits them, i.e. the last years of Gr. C and GT1. Let's not also forget that the 917, apart from an engineering marvel, was also a colossal loop hole. If FISA didn't decide to close it, Ferrari would bother to develope their 512 and the 917 fame of unbeateable wouldn't be so. Of course, as usual, Porsche decided to quit instead of building a new car for the new 3 liter regs; typical of them.

I just don't like heroes and ubermenschen. Most of the time they're a product of several circumstances, with a mix of talent of course, but that alone only works in the movies. Yet, if there are some heroes out there, Ferrari with their 33 F1 championships against some of the biggest names of the car industry should be heroes. But for some reason, some people always like to forget the good years and kick them when they're on the ground: "oh, those Italians, ****ed it again, as usual". But they had many bad years because they went through them instead of quitting.

 

+1000
Post of the thread

 

They have a culture of ownership and not political like Ferrari, where your boss takes the credit for success and you get hammered with failures.

Toto stated that part of his management style was to communicate openly with all the organization, in town hall meeting people own up to their mistakes openly.

He would stand up voice his mistakes.

People are empowered to take risks and take comfort in knowing that they will not be blamed if it goes wrong. It’s a powerful motivator in a company.

It is a structural issue and culture at Ferrari . I have ex Ferrari engineers working with me
I’ve interviewed and declined working for them for precisely this reason.

Fear of failure- Sergio M. was very adept at management often pulling people from the Fiat empire and putting them to work directly in the F1 team , without any favoritism, just on merit alone.

The other thing is pay structure- Ferrari said you should be happy with the offer after all your paycheck says Ferrari on it!

Mercedes F1 at the time I interviewed in 2011 offered everyone in the team (400+) something like bonus for every point won as a constructor, was an additional €10,000 per person, machinist or secretary all had this benefit.

There is very little arrogance just the British mentality of getting **** done.

Ferrari has the attitude you should be grateful that you work for them!

You think Aldo Costa forgot engineering when he left and went to Mercedes...?

Andre

 

You have undoubtedly raised one of the main problems in the internal functioning of the scuderia. Hence the need for a radical change of mentality. Remains more than to find the conductors ..

 

Perfect !!!

German mentality and work ethic, compared to latin epicurism and volatility.

 

If you read attentively my post #95, you will see that I only used the first part of TurboFreak650's quote and deleted the second part.
Therefore I do not understand your reference to Schumacher in your post #101, nor your insistance that I "worded it in such a way that it also applied to Italian cars and drivers from a slightly different era" [sic] post#104.

 

We all know Mercedes-Benz is running this "Dual Axis Steering" (DAS) system which allows
the drivers to control toe-in/toe out that helps the tires wear more evenly.

Not sure I've seen it mentioned any place else, but this weekend at Spa, it appeared they're
also running some sort of active suspension as under braking, the rear ends visibly rise putting
the wing higher into the air (so to say).

The Mercedes-Benzs are also visably smoother over the track bumps where as the Ferraris are
rebounding all over the place, the Mercedes-Benz cars are gliding over the undulations.

I can't be the only one noticing this.

BHW

 

What a pitiful spectacle. 0/20 this race. Nothing happened again... jeez


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That’s your interpretation of events, but I don’t share it. German manufacturers (Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, or BMW) have a different approach than say Ferrari. They get involved in motor racing with the sole aim of winning, so they concentrate their efforts, their resources and their budgets to that end, not merely to become a permanent participant, and expecting to win some years. They only “quit” when they have achieved their programme, mostly with success.

Since you mention the Porsche 917, you have to see the context in which it ever existed. It was the brainchild of Ferdinand Piech, Ferry Porsche’s nephew who became manager of the racing department, and had read the rules. If there was a loophole in the FIA Rules from 1968, it was not created by Porsche. After 2 Ford wins at Le Mans with 7-liter cars, the organisers asked to limit engine size. The FIA decided to limit engine to 3-liter in the Prototype category, the requirement for GTs would still be 100 produced cars. To please small constructors the Sport category was created, limited to 5-liter engines, initially with a 50 cars minimum production. Ford had already the GT40 produced in sufficient quantity, but Lola and Ferrari asked for that number to be reduced to 25, to race their T70 coupés and ageing 250LMs; the FIA agreed.

Porsche had always been in the business of selling the cars it raced. After the 718, the 904, 906, 907, the 908 was sold in significant number to private teams. Young Piech convinced the board at Porsche that instead of producing a new batch of 8-cyl 908s, in the light of the new rules, the firm should enter the new Sport category and develop a 4.5-liter flat-12 engine to power a tubular chassis built along the lines on the 906, 907, and 908 architecture. It was a colossal undertaking for a small independent family firm like Porsche was in those days.

The 917 beginnings were far from glorious, but Porsche persevered and found buyers for its cars. Suddenly Ferrari realised they had to join the Sport category; with their vast experience they had no problem finding an engine in their arsenal and extract a chassis from the 312P design: the 512S was born. Being turn-key race cars, both the 917 and the 512S found buyers in the States and in Europe among private teams, to race in the Endurance championship, CanAM or Interseries. The Porsche 917 was clearly superior to the Ferrari 512 that won only one race (Sebring) in 2 years, Porsche winning the rest, both championships and Le Mans twice!

Le Mans organisers became worried, once again, that the 5-liter Sports were faster than the 7-liter Prototypes of 5 years ago. Hence the FIA decision to can Sports, and limit endurance to 3-liter Protos. It was a setback for Piech’s business plan that the 917 was banned, far short of the production figures he had hoped for. That did cost him his job at Porsche, and provoked him to move to Audi.

As for the 3-liter new regs, Porsche with its air-cooled engine wouldn’t have been competitive against Ferrari, Matra, Alfa Romeo, etc.. Ferrari had been working on its flat-12 engine (shared with the F1) since 1967/8. After the unprofitable 917 effort, Porsche decided to leave endurance racing for a while and instead salvage some of the programme in the States in the CanAm series where it sold several cars with turbos and won the title twice. So the notion of quitting has to be seen in that context. One can understand that constructors race where their interests are, and not to simply entertain the public.

By the way, defeated twice at Le Mans by Matra, Ferrari “quit” endurance in late 1973/early 1974 when it had a winning car, to concentrate solely on F1. Just saying ...

Porsche came back at Le Mans, and won many times; Ferrari never returned.