Of course we knew it was going to happen as Ross Brawn eventually got his man after Jenson decided McLaren was the team for him, Micheal Schumacher is anow an official F1 driver for the 2010 season and all eyes were on him during testing yesterday in Valencia. He set the third fatest time in the new Mercedes, which is probably and ideal message to send out, the last thing you need is for Schumacher mania hitting the streets of germany, although I think a lot of Italians will be a litlle subdubed.
This is a great marketing tool for Mercedes wanting to be seen a making the best cars in the world. They have probably the best F1 racing engine in the world, led by the best technical director in the world and technically the best driver the world has ever seen (arguably). For those who missed first time round, they will be queing up for tickets. Many have already sold out at Silverstone, although this was probably more for the Button, Hamilton fight, but Micheals appearance would also be appreciaited.
What a year for Forumla One this is going to be and Mercedes are going to be in the thick of it somewhere, either with their own new team or as an engine suppliers for other teams.
It was very suspicious that a car manufacturer who wants to be seen as the best in the world, did not try hard enough to seal the talents of F1 champion Jenson Button for next year in their first full year of F1 in there own cars rather than partner with Mclaren. It just made sense the best Mercedes f1 engine, with the best team director as in Ross Brawn and the current world champion, a branding heaven. But now there is a serous rumour that being able to gain the mosts successful F1 driver in the world, who just happens to be German also, is on the cards, even though this could only be a very expensive card.
Michael Scumacher is being linked with Mercedes f1 to drive for them next year alongside Nico Rosberg, making this an all German line up with ood man out being Ross Brawn. Of course the attraction to Michael would be his old partner in crime as a formidible force with Ferrari and Benenton (if you can remember those days). The rumours are gathering pace, as Michael has not yet played down the rumours, evn if Ross has tried to. This would answer a lot of question about the mercedes team and its resistance to Jenson, who still keeps a Mercedes drive in teh Mclaren and is unlikely to give any bad press, he is also likley to be in a very competitive car next year.
While everyone celebrates in Great Briton about Jenson Button winning the drivers chmponship, behind the scenes Ross Brawn and Mercedes celebrate winning the constructors championship. Now the rumours are rife that Mercedes may want a part of the team and want to buy into it, something that Mclaren its other engine partner may not want to hear, after all who would get priority to development. Mercedes helped Brawn out big style with only 3 weeks to go to the start of the season and offered to put their engines in the Honda designed chassis withiout signing a single contract.
It should no be surprsing that this success story would have influenecd Mercedes to want to be part of the team on a more permanent basis. It is an unusual story in a time where cost cutting seems to be the priority in F1 and huge changes are about. BMW are pulling out at the send of this season and are still looking for a buyer, this was a team that may have seen tis year as a winnng or a least challenging for the title year. Instead, performance has been dreadfull, where Merecedes chance in a Brawn turned out to be a goldmine with no one forseeing this dream partnersip win.
With one more reace to go, lets hope all these rumpurs are put to rest for next season.
Who would have though that the star engine in a formula one car at the beginning of the year would be Mercedes, well we might have, but this would have been the Mclaren Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton who won the championship last year. However Mclaren’s start was not that impressive for the first part of the year to the pint they have given up on the championsip. \you would have though teh m\mercedes team would have been quietly disapointed, but as it turns out hey have scored a double whammy this season. This is becuase as Mclaren did not score points the newly formed Brawn racing did, in fact it won 6 out of the first 7 races. then Rubens has gone and won another 2 races, making a total of 8 for the Brawn team, keeping the smiles on the Mercedes engined team.
If this was not enough, Mclaren have now got their act together and have also just started to win races again, adding another 2 to the Mercedes tally.
The argument that motorsport and especially F1 is all about aerodynamics now-adays may have some credence, but there must be a connection between the reliability of the Mercedes Formula One engines and the wins they have produced. Mercedes have been releasing some new road models recently and have been working hard to get over the “quality of build” issues that many motoring magazine have criticised them for, so lets hope some lessons learned in the motorsport area can be transfered in to the mercedes you and me drive.
The fact that Mercedes (Mercedes-Benz) has been actively involved in the world of auto racing and motor sports (motorcycle racing as well as F1 and IRL) for more than six decades (60 years) is something that you auto racing fans may or may not already know about. If you were not aware that Mercedes has been the power plant behind some of the best known wins in auto racing all over the world you might want to start doing a bit of reading to get to know the history of the sport that you love to watch, listen to and cheer for.
One thing (or should we say many of the things) that Mercedes-Benz has been known for is all of the safety innovations that they have built into their cars (both race cars and passenger cars) are safety measures that have kept many of the race drivers from getting seriously injured or killed during the course of a race (this also extends to the passenger cars that Mercedes-Benz builds). In this way it really can be said that the innovations that have made auto racing much safer over the past few decades have paved the way for much safer passenger cars that travel the roads everyday. The Anti-lock Brakes (or ABS anti-locking braking system), Airbags and Crash Crumple Zones that have made our everyday commuting and travels much safer have come about as a result of needing to make sure that race car drivers are able to walk away from serious crashes on track.