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Lotus commemorates their new partnership with Ayrton Senna (BRA) by surrounding him with a bevy of Brazilian beauties.
Brazilian Grand Prix, Rio de Janeiro, 7 April 1985.
Interesting, as I never knew which car brought back pull-rod rear suspension (it was used frequently in the 80's, originally invented by Gordon Murray for the Brahbam BT44 front suspension)
Today all the F1 cars are using the very long pull rod rear suspension that Newey created in 2009.
Former CEO of Mercedes Nick Fry has revealed that the team weren’t convinced about taking on Lewis Hamilton from McLaren, opting to look at other drivers initially to drive alongside Nico Rosberg for the 2013 season
Mercedes returned to the Formula 1 grid in 2010 after taking over the Brawn GP team, putting Rosberg and seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher in their seats.
Schumacher retired again from F1 in 2012 and the Silver Arrows were in need of a replacement, but Hamilton was not the main option at first with Mercedes profiling other drivers instead.
Fry said in his book Survive. Drive. Win.: “In the first instance, I was unable to convince Mercedes of getting Lewis Hamilton.
“Several times we were told to think of someone else. For whatever reason, we were suggested to review drivers like Nick Heidfeld again; A driver who really wanted to take a seat.
“I received photos of himself, his family and his dog on the assembly line in an attempt to convince me.”
It wasn’t until Niki Lauda was brought into the team that Hamilton became an option saying: “Get him, I'll ask Mercedes later to forgive the choice."
Since the Brit has joined the Silver Arrows it has been nothing but success in the recent hybrid era of F1.
The team have won the past five constructors and drivers’ championships with Hamilton winning four of them and former teammate Rosberg taking his sole Championship in 2016 before he retired from the sport.
The 34-year old looks like he will again secure a sixth World Championship as he leads the standings ahead of current teammate Valtteri Bottas by 63 points.
That was when alot of changes were going on for MB. I'll ramble on for a few paragraphs of some of what I've read and also deduced.
After winning 2009, Brawn and Fry sell 3/4 of the Brawn GP to MB and they hold 1/4. They also get the vast sum of the money paid by MB, there are many unhappy Brawn GP workers who were understaffed, over worked, and got very little if anything of the payout.
Honda paid the vast majority of the 2009 and the rest was from sponsorship.
MB, Brawn, and Fry quickly negogiate a return drive contract for Schumacher for their 3rd partnership (Benneton, Ferrari, MB) and Rosberg. Rosberg almost doubles Schumacher's points in 2010, Rosberg beats Schumacher by a small margin in 2011, then again almost doubles the points in 2012 and Rosberg also wins their only race in the 3 years together. It's apparent, that the Brawn/Schumacher magic is not going to work after all.
The only good thing happening in this period is Brawn convinces Aldo Costa to join MB in 2012 after he was pushed aside at Ferrari. This is a very important as Costa worked under Rory Bryne at Ferrari, and a under rated technical director.
Now after 3 season in 2012 MB corporate management is annoyed that the results are not coming and low and behold Toto Wolff (who at the time was a tech entr. and investor in Williams F1) happens to have conversation with CEO/Chairman Dieter Zetsche.
Zetsche is impressed and invites Wolff to not only invest in the team but become CEO of their F1 team, so MB fires their motorsports director Norbert Haug and Nick Fry (F1 CEO). At the same time Niki Lauda also is brough on also as an investor and non-executive chairman.
Lauda is very instrumental to bringing Hamilton to MB, although I also read Alonso (whose Ferrari contract was espiring was approached first).
The only one left is Brawn, once Wolff is onboard and is a very smart startup entrepreneur kind of guy and starts to figure out why results are not coming taling to the MB F1 workers one on one.
Alot of the technical staff are not motivated and disillustioned and he concludes it's Brawn's management style so he hires Paddy Lowe from McLaren to become the "new" technical director in mid 2013.
Brawn's not sure where he stands in all this but it's Toto's organization now so he leaves volunterally at the end of 2013 although his authority is almost none after Lowe comes onboard.
Some people look at MB and think that it began with Brawn but IMO it really started under Wolff. He totally restructed how the team was organized and operated, insiders claim it's more like a Silicon Valley startup than a traditional F1 team.
He brought on many new and old people (Geoff Willis from Williams to do aero, James Allison another Ferrari reject Wolff brough on as technical director), that created a incredibly cohesive organization that has produced amazing results.
Wolff reminds me of a 1980's kind of Ron Dennis but in the 2010's, very sauvy and looking forward all the time.
It's amazing to think their top tier tenue is still going after 6 straight seasons. Oh and Hamilton, initially Wolff and Hamilton were not sure about the other and they had their moments in the past but now they understand each other and work pretty well together. It would not surprise me for Zetsche to appoint Wolff for a higer executive position within MB.
And most importantly is the type of team Wolff and MB have built. MB did not built a team around Hamilton like Ferrari did with Schumacher but Hamilton will probably eclipse Schumacher and also doing that in a more sporting and fair way.
I got back into F1 in 2014, so I didn't see all of that go down. Good analysis & makes a lot of sense.
One last note is that when MB bought Brawn in 2010, all the other car manufacturers were SELLING their teams just before then (just after the world wide economic recession)
Toyota, BMW, Renault, and Honda which made many F1 folks wonder why MB was joining F1 in 2010.
Pretty interesting the Japanese Honda aerodynamistist who discovered the loophole in the FIA rules due to having English as a 2nd language
He's also is pretty harsh on the Honda engine for 2008 and doesn't think Brawn would have won the 2009 WDC/WCC with a Honda engine.
BTW, don't buy Fry's book. He made $10M's from his stack in the Brawn team which cost him very little to no investment
Probably the best F1 YouTube channel's interview. He was very candid, bluntly honest, and didn't trash talk anyone (even Flavio!!).
Talked forthcoming about moving from team to team, what the experience was like, dealing with other drivers.
Bloody brilliant interview, highly recommended!
07-30-2019, 08:47 PM
I was expecting much more of a time gap.
