Rosberg says Mercedes are “working much better” now

2012 F1 season

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Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, W03, 2012

Nico Rosberg says he is encouraged the new technical team at Mercedes have produced a competitive car in the W03.

Speaking as the Mercedes W03 was launched, Rosberg said: “The team is working much better. You can see it on this car.

“Everything is much more compact, everything has its place. Nothing is thrown onto the car afterwards because ‘oh, we really need that’.

“Everything was planned in advance, the car is very light, it has a nice driving characteristic. So you can feel that the team is making progress thanks to all the people that have joined the team.

“How fast it is eventually, I don’t know yet. But even there, the can fully focus on performance at the moment because there’s no reliability issues.”

Team principal Ross Brawn said the team were cautiously positive about the car’s potential:

“We’ve tested in isolation, which is always difficult. But we’re reasonably encouraged by what we’ve seen.

“Half a second one way or the other is what makes the difference in Formula 1 so, really, until we get to Melbourne, we won’t know the true picture.

“But you get a feeling, you get an impression, if you’re in a stronger group or need to catch up. The impressions so far are positive.”

Brawn added he would not be satisfied if the team failed to better fourth in the championship for a third year in a row:

“We must move forward. We’ve had two seasons of fourth in the world championship and that’s not good enough. So we must move forward.

“Whether we achieve our ultimate ambition this year or next year or whenever, we’ve got to keep moving forwards, keep the team strengthening.

“My dream would be for Michael [Schumacher] to win again and for Nico to win his first race. So that’s our ambition, that’s our objective.

“A championship is made up of many things. We will take that opportunity if we have a chance of winning a championship. But you never know – you never know how strong the opposition are, you never know how good a job you’ve done. We’ll know a little bit more from this testing over the next few weeks.

“But as I say I think the thing that’s very encouraging for me is the strength we’ve got in the team now, and the ability of the team to react.

“We have massive support from our board. Dr [Dieter] Zetsche couldn’t ask for more support for what we want to achieve. And we’re building a team that, I feel, can achieve those ambitions and those objectives.”

2012 F1 season


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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Rosberg says Mercedes are “working much better” now”

  1. Yeah, i get the impression from them that everything is really starting to fall in place for them now. Lets see if they start delivering on track as well then!

    1. To be honest, the way Rosberg describes the way of working it now wasn’t, thus indicating that is where they came from, is a bit scary for a championship winning group of people. No wonder Button was impressed with the methodical way of McLaren (even if that too can have flaws).

      1. Brawn had a great car, gifted from Honda, but due the the initial expense reduction they had to do while they were Brawn, and then the new ramp up as they became Merc, you can imagine how things might have gotten a bit crazy.

        1. @mike Yep. I don’t think anyone could have expected much from them in 2010 as a result of Brawn’s approach in 2009.

  2. new compact sidepod (thats good compare last year). looks like Ferrari old days in silver.

  3. 100th win for shumacher

  4. “My dream would be for Michael [Schumacher] to win again and for Nico to win his first race. So that’s our ambition, that’s our objective.”

    A cynical man would read this to mean that the focus is on building a car for MSC to win in, not Rosberg. Lucky I’m not a cynical man! :)

    1. To be fair, Brawn and Schumacher have been working together for almost 20 years, only missing a few years in the mid-00s. It would be surprising if he didn’t mention Schumacher first…

      1. A cynical man would read this to mean that the focus is on building a car for MSC to win in, not Rosberg

        That only happened at Ferrari when it was very much team first, drivers second. I doubt Mercedes would be ready to do that

    2. I don’t get it at all, he simply says he wants BOTH his drivers to win a race this year, & that Michael has already won races whereas it would be Nico’s 1st win.

      Where’s the need to draw cynicism from that most simple of comments?

  5. (Side note to Keith: the last paragraph doesn’t make sense.)

    Mercedes are sounding very positive. You didn’t hear this kind of talk from them last year. They must think they’re in a good position to win at least a couple of races.

    1. Side note to ‘Shimky” YES IT (Keith’s last paragraph) DOES ACTUALLY hahaha :-)!

  6. I think we are all used to all F1 teams singing the same old “we’ve really made improvements this year” song at this time of year; but I think when Brawn does it he really means it. He hasn’t spoken like this since 2009 testing, where he was cagey but optimistic about the car’s performance. I think, and I hope, that the 2012 Merc will be a real contender.

  7. Merc must move forwards… That we all agree must be their aim.

    But what if they did it? It becomes a very interesting idea when you take into account that one of the top three teams would have to be pushed down for them to do it.

    1. *add* Who would it be? and what affect would it have on the team? That’s what I want to know!

      1. To me, we don’t have anything to go by for now…maybe by the end of the week some trends will start to arise that we can use to speculate further.

        For now I would say purely on a gut feeling and due to relative stability in the rules, Merc won’t be displacing anyone…I think they will be in a strong 4th place position to start off with, as opposed to a distant 4th. If anyone, it seems Ferrari may still be unsure of what they have. Read elsewhere Red Bull haven’t shown their full package yet as they have been trying to keep their car as secret as possible.

        I predict Red Bull will still be the car to beat, Mac will be close early on instead of later, Ferrari may or may not displace Mac for second, but won’t be worse than 3rd, and Merc will be a strong 4th and regularly bother the Ferrari’s…especially FM, like last year. May even bother the Macs depending on the day.

        I just don’t see anyone leapfrogging the Red Bulls, and for Merc to have come from a distant 4th to leapfrog a team that has presumably improved over last year, seems too much to expect given that there doesn’t seem to be anything radical with the new Merc. They are talking about progressing and working well together, not making massive strides.

        All purely speculation on my part of course…generally I just think we will pick up where they left off last season only closer together for at least the top 6 teams.

        1. Ok, but lets say they did take 3rd…

          Then what would it mean to the team who loses out?

          1. I would say it would mean that said team would just have to put their noses harder to the grindstone and claw that back…try to figure out how they have faltered and try to correct it.

            Hard to imagine Red Bull, Mac, or Ferrari not in the top 3, and if either one finds themselves out of those spots I’d say it wouldn’t be by much, and might depend on the day or the track, some luck or what have you. But of course, some days you do your best and everything goes ‘right’ but it still wasn’t enough. That’s the journey. You just buckle down and strive for better. What other option would a team’s sponsors accept, let alone the hard workers throughout every aspect of the team? They certainly cannot control what others do. They can only do what is in their control.

            And really, how long ago now has it been that we have seen how dominant the Red Bulls are such that ALL the other teams, not just the top 3, have fretted about what to do about such domination?

          2. @mike
            I think the current top three are all strong enough to survive a short blip in form, McLaren were nowhere at the beginning of 2009 but they clawed their way back. Ferrari seem to be the weakest in depth of the three, they’ve been shuffling their personnel for a few years now looking for a winning combo.

            Ferrari are the most likely to drop down too, firstly due to the car being a new concept and so far seemingly not a very good one, and secondly because Massa is pants.

          3. Ferrari would be the team to lose at the moment, neither driver or the team look happy with the characteristics of the baseline 2012 Ferrari car…

    2. Based on Ferrari’s relatively lacklustre 2011 campaign I believe they could be knocked off their perch quite easily if Massa doesn’t sort himself out.

      1. @George…are we so sure the new concept Ferrari is not a good one? I’m still taking them at their word that they need more time to sort out the cars full potential, which to me is a far cry from it being slow, problematic or whatever people are thinking. It is a departure from last year’s…perhaps moreso than other team’s car vs. their last year’s efforts…I think they just need time to learn more about their creation. I will be surprised if ultimately they will have taken a step backwards. Then again, they may not have but others may have taken a bigger step forwards. We’ll just have to see, but I certainly don’t think we have seen Ferrari’s placing amongst the grid yet…nowhere near.

  8. Third time lucky for Mercedes? I hope so. I just want them to win…something! They’re a constructor for goodness sake, it’s just not right! That said, I of course appreciate the huge task in front of them. Things do sound positive for them. I’m basing that on what Nico said about the teams cohesion and that can only be a good thing.

  9. If Mercedes again fail to give a good car then I don’t see Schumacher continuing with them in the future.

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