LOL

Moral : Delete any hyperbolic posts during the season once you are sure that things arent going your way !

Thank you Slategray for posting these hilarious quotes. So many people who were so blind.

Thank you baddog for posting these hilarious quotes. So many people who were so blind.

Crunch time has come in the Mercedes GP team in 2011!

It will be fascinating to watch how Michael will get the better of Nico, after having the car developed in his direction and under his supervision. Will Michael be ever so devastating again on his team mate as he used to be pre-2010?

Or will Nico, if he again beats Michael fair and square, chime in the demise of the 7-time world champion, the man who has won more in the history of F1 than anyone else? A David beating Goliath, a man who has not won a single GP to date beating a man who has won 91 of them?

If the first scenario happens I would not bet against Michael winning the 2011 WDC, thus becoming an 8-time WDC.
If the second scenario happens I would not bet against Schumacher leaving the sport before the season has ended, possibly under some pretext....

So even more so than in the other teams, the 2011 duel in Mercedes GP will be jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring!

Thanks to WhiteBlue and his superb graphics here the take of the bookies on the situation:




It looks like an nearly even 50:50 chance between Rosberg and Schumacher to win the duel in 2011, with slight advantage to Rosberg....

Schumacher 1m41,757s on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, testing the new Pirelli tyres, http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88436
Rosberg 1m41,778s on Friday in Abu Dhabi, when the track was not rubbered in so nicely for Pirellis yet. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88412

If we were to take any conclusions from that, it might mean a very slight advantage for Nico on Pirellis, but mind you, these times have been achieved still with the 2010 car....the advantage might slide in Michael's favour come the new car!

I don't really think times from that test count much and tells us much.
next year I see Michael having a way better year than this one, but still beaten by Rosberg. let's say, he'll be scoring the 85-90% of Rosberg's points.

+1

Nico will still have the upper hand but Michael will be decent for his age. Good situation for Merc IMO. They will still be able to milk lots of PR from his super stardom.
In the ROC race Michael was slower than Sebastian Vettel in the open wheel buggy. If Nico is anywhere near Sebastian - and I think he is - he should keep the upper hand.

Well, after everyone seems to be convinced that his days are over, I say he will beat Rosberg next year.

And here was me thinking it is still 2010 and that there was already a MS Vs Rosberg thread - silly me.

Ok I'll bite,

I note that Schumacher was faster but there just has to be an excuse why, however had Rosberg been faster then the old "he should retire, no preferential treatment *insert favorite MS bash*" would have come up without doubt.

Get rid of Jock Clear and Andrew Shovlin and Schumi will suddenly do MUCH better.

I wish he could get Chris Dyer as his engineer... :/

They got rid of Jock clear and Shovlin. Although "got rid" is harsh. Shovlin is chief race E., Jock I don't know about (factory, somebody said), Mark Slade from Renault for MS, and Rosberg gets his Williams race eng.

So is this the thread where one can hang himself in prediction over the 2011 results?

If so I play along. I predicted pre last season that Rosberg will do better than Schumi and I have no reason to change a winning horse right now. Michael isn't getting any younger - neither is Nico but in his age it's called maturing.

Well chosen words, TT6. Still I think the battle will be tighter, like in the last third of the 2010 season. Shall be interesting...

IF the understeering issue is sorted then I'll back grandpa to give Nico a much harder time, maybe even just nose ahead.

but he was getting faster in the last 4 races as proved by live timing.

dont see why this cant continue in 2011

I'm predicting equal trashing like MS got in 2010. Nico will be nearing his peak while MS continues to decline because of age. The added experience he now has will compensate for these points and the end result will hence be about the same.

continues to decline? go look at the live timings for the last 4 races k thanks

I think MS will beat Nico. He was on song last few races and I hope he carrys that through.

Im a big Nico fan but this year he didnt display how I expected or wanted him too. He disapointed IMO.

Heh getting the excuses ready? Come on man have some confidence ;)

Hard to tell without any clues on next year car. As a Michael fan I surely hope he'll do better than this year.

I think MS will be quicker next year than he was this year, he'll have a car designed around him to drive instead of the compromise of the 2010 car - by that I mean its both a compromise due to limited budget during development but also the car hasn't been designed around him.

As I understand it MS likes a car that is really quite different to most other drivers. Im sure Merc will go to any lengths to give him a quick car. I was reading a thread the other day that said when JPM and Kimi were at McLaren they had different suspension arms, shocks and geometry to get the car how they liked it. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with that situation in 2011.

I personally think Rosberg is a WDC, not just in a car thats 2 sec quicker than anyone else, but with a capable car Im sure he'd be right there. He did a fantastic job this year, keeping pace, looking after tyres but still quick with it, no mistakes, just solid, dependable driving.

Now, for 2011, its going to be a case of if Rosberg can drive the car really designed around Michael. I hope he can, because he'll beat MS more often than not.
If he can't adapt to the car he'll sink, too many drivers after that Merc seat...

building a car for a driver is BS.

a fast car is a fast car, a fast car generally has setup options while a slow car has a silly narrow window like this years merc did

Really what is this utter BS about "a car designed around MS" from everybody?? No team, not even Ferrari designed a car around its one driver. If there are tweaks needed for a driver, that is is done in any team as a driver needs it, and is perfectly normal. But DESIGN? No. During the season however Rosberg and MS has both voiced several times that their preferences are objectively the same. The driver gives an input to the team, and Rosberg I am sure has given his fare share of input at Merc. If the new car will be more drivable, than that is a good thing for both of them, and this years car was closer to the Honda dogs than to last years Brawn winner. So if the car is better, they will both profit from that. Now, if MS profits more I see you all will be hopping on the dumbwagon with the dilettant theory of the W02 being built to suit MS, which just is not true, as Brawn himself has stated already.

oops, you won mine took longer to write.

Did you even read what I wrote ?
McLaren used to build basically different cars for Kimi & JPM - the tub was the same but major components were different. This is called designing and building a different car for each driver.

You seriously think Michaels WDC Ferraris were not built around him ? seriously ?
In that case, lets say, for a minute that MS beat his team mates down to superior skill. Why couldn't he beat Nico this year then ? Is Nico a better driver ?
I'd say probably not. I'd also say Michael struggled with the car. Next year will be different, partly due to rules changes but also because he will influence the design.
Merc signed MS because its a big marketing thing for Germany - fair enough. They will want him to succeed.

On several occasions Rosberg repeated that Michael's and his requirements for the car are surprisingly the same, so argument that the car is designed around Michael won't go through if Schumacher is faster. Rosberg can only blame himself if these were only promotional talks in order to portray himself better than Michael.

Even this year Michael used different springs to Nico because he is/was 5kg heavier. But, I really doubt F1 team will build car with different suspension arms, geometry for drivers. And if McLaren eventually did this , it not mean Ferrari did the same?

I predict Rosberg will beat Schumacher again and the car will be off the pace again. Sucks because I really would like to see a Schumi/Merc assault on the red team.

Yeah, I read it, and its still BS in my opinion. Mc never designed different cars for its drivers, that is even bigger BS. Seriously, there were years when RB tested more than MS. They have never "built around him, or anybody else" a car, because there is no such thing. As I said, there are tweaks, and there preferences, but one car is designed, and Rory Byrne, Tombazis, Newey, and any other designer, is NOT sitting in front of his desk thinking about what style of driving suits which driver they have. Maybe they can paint them to the liking of a driver, but as you know, that is out of question at Ferrari and Mc. The designer thinks about rules and regulations, and tries his best to draw up and design a car as neutral as possible. Marketing? yep, of course. Want him to succeed? Yep, of course. Tell me, why is Rosberg there? To lick MS's axx? Sure doesn't seem like that to me. Maybe Rosberg whas better. Maybe MS will be better in 2011. Maybe not. We will see. Bur NOT because I say again "the car was built around him" because there is no such thing. Either it is a good hardware or a dog. If it is good, MS will not have an easier job to better Rosberg, because Rosberg is not the average driver some here make him out to be. So stop the BS please.

That's true
Ronzo and McLaren did all to support Montoya on that aspect, even split the development team to give custom made parts for JPM.

And YES, once McLaren made a custom tub [surviving cell] for Mansell when he came back from Indy to F1.
Mansell was too... big to fit in an usual F1, so McLaren made a larger tub [more confy] specially for him.

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_new...es_art_id=42679

strange that the drivers in all teams are numbered by their position in the previous championship yet Schumacher gets number 7 to Rosbergs 8 despite being outscored by him.

It has been discussed before that the numbers can be allocated by the team, and MS prefers odd ones

A preference which only became public knowledge 19 years after his F1 debut, in a sport with total media saturation, from a driver who has never displayed anything but a logic driven personality.

Just a coincidence that in F1 the odd number is always the highest in the team.

Well not exactly, Damon Hill had the number '0' in 1994 right ? So that must have made Schumacher an even numbered driver in that year ? Can someone please jog my fast fading memory here ?

Sorry for the OT

No Williams ran 0 and 2 instead of 1 and 2 that year i seem to recall.

Yep. Benetton had 5 and 6, with Schumacher on 5 and Verstappen (most of the year) on 6.

..not.

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