Yes he did....

The number 1 has been with McLaren 2 times in 4 years then. Not once or 3 times?

Once with Alonso bringing it from Renault, once through Hamilton winning the championship.

...and now with Button from BGP

(sta nije bolje da pricamo po nasi a ovih dva,tri engleza nek se prilagode ) sorry sorry offtopic

Massively flawed post.

$50 million is one seventh of McLarens budget. In onther words, a massive amount.

The roadcardivision you mentioned is as far as I know not linked to the racing division. And if the roadcar division was to make money, why would they put that profit into the racing division?

Do you have you a figure in mind for the FOTA voluntary budget restrictions? Over the next coupla seasons the idea is to get back 1990s level of spend, so the gap where any Merc money was, kind of takes care of itself. (Hah, poor Max, all that pushing and shoving, lost your job over it, and the main beneficiary turns out to be Ron).

I wouldn't be so sure on the 50mill number anyway, sure they dumped a fair chunk in, but last year's number was skewed horribly with the KERS moneypit.

I reckon between sponsors falling over themselves for 2 well-spoken pretty-boys, gulf states with money to burn, and a bigger, fairer, chunk of Bernie prize money, I reckon they'll easily keep the factory lights on. You worry too much.

Yas it seems if Mclare cannot win nr.1 they simply buy it

(saćemo ih malo izluđivat, ove engleziće haha, si ti kerumovac ili se sprdaš na keruma?)

The roadcar division is seperate from the racing division in order to reduce risk to both parties. However, the roadcar division is basically promoted by the success and history of the racing team, so I would expect to see some money being filtered over as "payment" for this (assuming that it is needed and assuming that the road car division is profitable, loans have been serviced etc.)

Hm.

I might worry to much, yes. But I think it is hard to impose budget limitations. How can they (FOTA) control a sponsorship agreement where there is no cash changing hands, only product or services? The actual real budget/expenditure would be the same. In other words, the loss of Mercedes money could make a inpact on the bottom line even with the new rules.

Jebes Räikkönena





Btw when is the maclaren launch?





GO MACLAREN

I don't think Mclaren are going to worry about that right now, Mercedes contributions to their budget would conitnue until the end of 2011.

McLaren

i was reading the blog at axisofoversteer and he mentioned merc are supposed to provide those engine uptil 2015 now(contrary to 2011)....is there something that i missed about this?

Mclaren and Mercedes had a contractual agreement that will not be renewed when it lapses at the end of 2011 and it can be presumed that agreement will be in force till 2011. The agreement to be partners till 2015 is another agreement separate from the existing one. This is how I see it anyway and there is nothing to suggest otherwise. From 2011 onwards, Mclaren will lose financial support from Mercedes and will be buying the engines from Mercedes.

Yes, there is something.

yea and it seems the agreement till 2015 basically means long as Mclaren wants to buy the merc engines, Mercedes has to supply them. My guess is Ron sees 2015 as worst case scenario of how long it would take to get a dependable F1 engine built inhouse

Yes. Free engines up until the end of the previous contract, and then 5million euro a year after that, if McLaren choose to continue. By then the new (fuel-economy) engine regulations will be published, the 2012-15 overlap would be the fallback position, if any new McLaren engine is clinging to the testbench, then keep the Mercedes till you can get your new one running properly.


Yeah, yeah, we all know it's gonna stay silver, but with no testing till February, it's gonna be a long off-season, so we gotta keep ourselves amused.

I liked the Black/Red A-Team car. Just for giggles, here's my attempt at trying to have McLaren Papaya and Vodafone Rocket Red on the same car, and not have it turn into a hot-dog stand :



Shiny metallic orange, you wouldn't lose it in a crowd.
Cross-promote the roadcar, and see if you can shake some more money out of Bahrain for the endplates.
Hmmmm, it really is a, let's say, challenge to get those two clashing colours to sit beside each other on the same car - try it ... either way, at least it's not a BMW/Toyota snoozefest, and I think we just about manage to keep it this side of Renault clowncar.

That looks awesome to my taste.

The problems is the red.

ING Renault MkII

Not for me.

Imagine if Orange would be the sponsor, the car could be fully dull orange, this is more interesting with red, black and orange.

Red and orange fit well naturally, see a blood orange or autumn leaves:

... And we have the twilight sunrise car.

Sorry for the OT post!



A school project that I'm a sponsor of has just



The team is at:

http://mach1f1.co.uk/Index/Index.htm
a McLaren sticker would go nice on it

@feynman...great photoshop...that car looks awesome

but we had the best driver.....Hamilton is better than Alonso & Kimi & Button

(offtopic: decki, lakše malo......Vidjet hravate kako preko malih zaslona gledaju slovence na SP u južnoj africi..je NEPRECENLJIVO....a za sve ostalu tu je MasterCard )

You are really living in la la land aren't you?

The press statement reads "Daimler AG and McLaren Group will change their form of cooperation with effect as of 13 November 2009."
That means that the old agreement has been superseded by a new one and that there are new terms and conditions.
It there were no new terms and condisitons, what would be the point of a new agreement? They could just let it lapse in 2011.

Sweet dreams!

don't you think it's unlikely for McLaren to let Mercedes tear up the old agreement earlier without any penalty?

Neither you or I are prve to the details of the new agreement.
Are you saying it is does not make sense to you that what they do have is an agreement that unifies what was in place and details the changes in their relationship from 2011 onward?
Am I to believe that it makes sense to you for Mclaren to agree with Mercedes to tear up what they had and replace that with one that costs them when they don't have to? And by cost, I mean they lose all the benefits under the old agreement which includes - as far as I know - free engines, direct money injection from Mercedes annually, sharing the costs of drivers' salaries etc.

If these sounds reasonable to you, then you may want to explain even speculate as to why Mclaren would want that and even be happy with it. You may also want to include in your respons why the name of the team is still Vodafone Mclaren Mercedes and why Mercedes shares have to be bought back by 2011? I mean why is 2011 so significant?

It is true that there are changes to the agreement that was scheduled to lapse in 2011; obvious changes like Brawn becoming immediately Mercedes works team which wouldn't have been possible without Mclaren's agreement but if anyone think that Mercedes did not or are not paying a price for this, I would suggest they do a rethink.

I wait for your response and maybe then we can discuss the small matter of dreams.

A few images of the Zytek-MB_HPE-KERS system used last year.


KCU (Control)


KPP (Battery Pack)


Mercedes FO108W-K System Integration.

Femi, McLaren is paying the price for going it alone and setting up a car brand that would compete with it's main backer: Mercedes.

penalty=contractual obligation
what sort of contractual obligations can they be if, like you believe, they will immediately withdraw all financial support?

-No engines for RedBull
-Engines free of charge untill 2011

Isn't this obvious to all?

you've read their contracts? how can you be sure? Do you really expect Mercedes to say 'yup, there's a penalty for our early exit."?
Free engines is financial support, it costs money.

I would like to think so so too, but it seems many McLaren fans are in a state of denial.
The main reason Zetsche gave for the break-up, along with with reduced F1 expenditure in the next few years.
Read the press statements. Both McLaren's and Mercedes. They both talk about McLaren's automotive aspirations. That was the main point of dispute.
It can't be more obvious than that.

Yes, but Mercedes gets branding on the McLaren cars in return.

Wow Andy thanks for that. It is awesome to be able to see those kind of details! Now that the season is over and that kers will not be used next year, can you reveal if it was investigated at all to pu the battery pack in the nose (as it was rumored to be the case of the renault kers), and if yes why it was dropped?

but? you're just stating the obvious. you're not thinking Mercedes is F1 for racing, are you? With or without McLaren, they're in F1 for branding. Old agreement or new agreement, they supply engines and money to have their logo on the car.

I think that's exactly his point, neither Femi or any of us has seriously disputed that's the cause of the split. It's bloody obvious.

It couldn't have gone in the nose really.

Below is the complete section of the Q/A of relevance:



If you took the first answer and the last, there seems to be some contradiction; on the surface but I don't think so.
DZ answered the first question ambigously. I think Mclaren would only start paying for engines from 2011 as you pointed out which is part of the contractual obligations.

Whatever the reason for the breakup, it is irrelevant to the fact that Mercedes wanted to walk away from Mclaren at the end of 2011. They have a contractual obligation not to do so before then and the fact that they are not paying any penalty and DZ maintaining they are keeping to their contractual obligations indicates to me that they are doing just that - maintaining those obligations not just by Mercedes but Mclaren as well - till 2011.

You wrote one of the obligations that Mercedes would keep would be free engines to Mclaren but DZ said they would be paid for, what he didn't say was when the payment would start but he went on to confirm that they are free of penalty because they are going to keep to contractual obligations - all of them.

It was this same guy that said walking away from Mclaren would yield a 75% in cost savings; eventually. Why eventually and not next year? Afterall operational cost of Brawn is already at around 50 mil Euro /yr

One thing you have to bear in mind is Mercedes do have some problems within its board and staff - they are laying of workers to cut cost - so it is important for DZ to present the deal with the best possible slant. He wouldn't hold a press conference and declare that they are sponsoring 2 F1 teams till 2011 if he didn't have to, so he had to be smart with words.

Mclaren starting its own automotive business is in no way a violation of their agreement with Mercedes so the choice is very clear either Mercedes pays compensation or fulfill the agreement and they have chosen to do the latter.

Nothing else makes sense.

I think thats the part causing confusion. The part of the agreement that changes as of 13 Nov. is that Brawn is now the official Mercedes works team and no longer Mclaren. But especially with Ron n co having to buy shares back, I highly doubt Mercedes would get away without fulfilling their contract obligations.

The new McLaren road car is due to use a McLaren engine as far as i know so obviously they are due to establish a performance engine design department (or already have done)

Ron has always stated his desire for McLaren to be like a British Ferrari, more than just another team in other words. If he's following that model he may be considering using a McLaren engine in the future, with the current technical regs it's not as expensive as it once was and would provide tremendous marketing possibilities if linked to the road car in any way. The road car will be a V8 just like F1 but it is 3.8L and has a twin turbo so probably as different as it is similar.

It's a long shot but it would certainly provide the team with the sort of long term stability no commercial partnership could provide.

I'm still not understanding why McLaren would tear up their contract without getting favorable terms. It's Mercedes who wanted out before the current deal ran it's course. Mercedes wanted their name on the car and that couldn't happen without McLaren's approval. Maybe they could have found some round about way to buy Brawn without McLaren approval but they still wouldn't be able to name it Mercedes until 2011 right?

How could McLaren come out of this with the short end of the stick. I like to believe Ron is smarter than that. I think it's obvious he wouldn't have expected Mercedes to keep funding the team as they were starting a competing business. It's obvious he also wanted to buy back the 40% Mercedes hold. I'm not seeing anything that would be out of their expectations. It's not like they would be surprised by Mercedes decision. In fact it's almost like they forced Mercedes hand. So much so that Mercedes couldn't wait until 2011 to go ahead with their plans. Or maybe they just couldn't let the opportunity to buy Brawn pass. Either way it's McLaren who have the upper hand.

At the end of the day I just don't see Ron anything but extremely pleased by the way things have unfolded. Maybe thats just my McLaren goggles though.

You're not wrong ...

That looks awesome

Now replace the orange with silver and we're getting somewhere.

More news about the MP4-12C

Very nice

Thank you for your efforts

Still preferring the red and black to be honest.