2011 Formula 1 Santander British Grand Prix - Mercedes GP Report

**Scourge82** · 07-06-2011, 11:18 AM

Mercedes GP will be racing at Silverstone, home of the 2011 British Grand Prix, also one of the team's home grand prix. Mercedes GP has had some set backs this year, but are hoping to turn things around this weekend with improved results with some new parts and upgrades.

Michael Schumacher had this to say:

Silverstone is one of our home races where we will be backed by everybody from the factories in Brackley and Brixworth, therefore we would love to do well and thank them for their hard work.
With all the changes we have this season, it is difficult for me to judge how the track will suit our car. As always, we will probably only know more after the Friday practice sessions.
We are in the process of developing further upgrades and new solutions which I am confident will help us to make a step forward again. The message for all of us is to put our heads down and work our way through, and as we are all sharing this attitude, I am sure we will get there.

Nico Rosberg:

“Silverstone is a very cool track. I’m really looking forward to all the fast corners, especially from Copse through Becketts to Stowe.
I finished third last year and I hope to have another good result, especially because so many of the people working at Brackley and Brixworth will be there with their families. This is the first of our two home Grands Prix in July, so I want to give a good performance in front of our people.
We will have a few new updates, and I’m curious to see how this will affect my car. Hopefully we can close the gap to the top a little bit.

Ross Brawn:

Silverstone is always a special weekend for our team, with the home of the British Grand Prix being located so close to our factory in Brackley and to Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines in Brixworth. It’s a great opportunity for our staff and their families to see the cars in action so close to home. Having visited the new pit and paddock complex earlier this year, combined with the layout changes implemented in 2010, I believe Silverstone is now really a venue to be proud of.
We have been working very hard on developments for the car to improve our competitive position, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank the team for the commitment they have shown.

Norbert Haug:

As one of the original rounds of the Formula One calendar since 1950, the British Grand Prix is a true classic race. The circuit at Silverstone has moved with the times and, after a new layout last year, 2011 will see the start-finish line move to its third location in the circuit’s history, as well as the introduction of a modern pits complex.
Looking to our team’s performance, we know that we are currently not in a position to challenge the top three teams in Valencia and we cannot expect that situation to turn around at Silverstone. However, a lot of hard work is being done to improve our technical package and we all will focus on achieving a decent result.

**Sorena** · 07-06-2011, 11:51 AM

Have fun there man, Don't forget the Grid girls

**Sticky** · 07-08-2011, 03:35 AM

Have a good time

Did the BenzBoost shirt come in?

**Scourge82** · 07-08-2011, 12:40 PM

Just got back from the practice sessions and OMG!!!
One of the greatest experience I've ever been to. The weather sucked, it was sunny then it rained, and sunny again. When practice 2 started, the rain poured down. I didn't get a chance to get pictures today because of the rain.
I got to see Kobayashi crash his car right infront of me, that was insane. Here's the aftermath pic I got from my blackberry
Click here to enlarge

Sticky, I got the tshirt yesterday and wore it out there. It was the first one I made, not the one with the Benzboost logo. I did have a couple of guys ask me about the site. I told them what the site is and what it's abll about, so hopefully some more people will join. I'll put some pics of it in the tshirt thread.

**Sticky** · 07-08-2011, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by Scourge82

Sticky, I got the tshirt yesterday and wore it out there. It was the first one I made, not the one with the Benzboost logo. I did have a couple of guys ask me about the site. I told them what the site is and what it's abll about, so hopefully some more people will join. I'll put some pics of it in the tshirt thread.

AWESOME!!!!!

**Sorena** · 07-09-2011, 01:31 AM

Go Massa!

**Scourge82** · 07-09-2011, 04:13 PM

Mark Webber was able to snatch pole position in the rainy British Grand Prix. Webber ended Vettel's pole position streak with a 1:30.399 beating him by just 0.032s. Alonso earned 3rd and was 0.1s behind, while Massa was forth and Button 5th. Hamilton had a bad day and only managed 10th.

While Mercedes GP looked strong during the practice sessions, the rain put a damper on them during qualifying. Nico Rosberg managed to qualify 9th while Schumacher was eliminated in the second qualifying session, he could only manage 13th place.

After the race the Mercedes team had this to say

Nico Rosberg:

We have made good progress with our technical package this weekend, but P9 is not the best that we could have achieved today. At the end of Q2, I was in fifth place, but on my final lap in Q3, the track was wet in turn 15 and I just couldn’t improve in that final sector. With the pace of the car, hopefully we can make up some places in the race tomorrow.

Michael Schumacher:

"Owing to the uncertain weather situation, and in order to not risk driving in the rain, we went out rather early, which simply turned out to be too early. On my last lap, the tyres were unfortunately already gone and, especially in turn six, I suffered understeer which cost me the time to make it into the top ten." Although he had lost running time during P3 through a technical problem, he was quick to stress this was not the cause of his difficulties. "It did not have anything to do with the gearbox issue we experienced this morning. Let’s see what can be possible now coming from P13 and having some fresh tyres available - maybe some rain could help."

Ross Brawn said this in term of the car cars new package:

"The team had very limited dry running with our new aerodynamic package, as well as having to come to terms with the change in engine strategies." He conceded it had been "a patchy qualifying session during which we didn't catch the track at the right times," explaining that "today was the first step in utilising the new exhaust designs and technologies, and we are still finding our way.”

Norbert Haug:

Nico posted his fastest Q3 time on a set of used option tyres which had completed an out-lap earlier in the session. He was considerably quicker with his new options in the first two sectors of his final attempt. His two split times were good enough to suggest he could have finished P5, but he had to abort the lap in the last sector because of rain. Michael missed out on Q3 by less than a tenth of a second. Starting from ninth and 13th places on the grid, we did not achieve the maximum possible today, but nevertheless we will fight for better results tomorrow.

**Scourge82** · 07-09-2011, 04:22 PM

Today was insane, from the weather to the sessions. Again it was going back and forth, which messed up qualifying. Everytime the cars went by, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was a great rush. I did get quite a few pictures today, I'll get them all uploaded when I get home from the race tomorrow.

Sorry Sorena, no pictures of the Silverstone babes yet, I think I saw only 2 walking around and alot of guys were following them around like puppy dogs. I think the rain kept them in hiding or it could have been me. I saw one of the flyasia girls walking away from me and she had the greatest set of legs, I've ever seen. But when i got to her and she turned around, all i saw was butter face so I ran away.

**M3_WC** · 07-09-2011, 05:43 PM

A lot of politics going on before qualifying about the blown diffusers.

**Sticky** · 07-09-2011, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by Scourge82

Today was insane, from the weather to the sessions. Again it was going back and forth, which messed up qualifying. Everytime the cars went by, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was a great rush. I did get quite a few pictures today, I'll get them all uploaded when I get home from the race tomorrow.

Sorry Sorena, no pictures of the Silverstone babes yet, I think I saw only 2 walking around and alot of guys were following them around like puppy dogs. I think the rain kept them in hiding or it could have been me. I saw one of the flyasia girls walking away from me and she had the greatest set of legs, I've ever seen. But when i got to her and she turned around, all i saw was butter face so I ran away.

Awesome, awesome. Put the qualifying report up, well done!

**Scourge82** · 07-11-2011, 05:58 AM

Alonso won his first race this year in his Ferrari. It was a special victory for the team, They won their first race here 60 years ago. Alonso capitalized on a botched pit stop which saw him pass Vettel, who was the race leader. Vettel finished second after Team Red Bull told Webber, who came in third to back off, which prevented him from passing Vettel for second place. Hamilton came in third mear inches ahead of Massa. Rosberg finished 6th after dropping to 12th place at the start, who had a relatively quiet race. Schumacher, who started 13th, worked his way up to 9th place, On lap 9 he made contact with Kobayashi after trying to pass him and lost his front wing. After getting a new wing and swapping to dry soft tires, he climbed back up to 7th place, but then was slapped with a 10 sec stop and go penalty for his collision earlier. Schumi ended up finishing the race in 9th place.

Here's a run down of what the team had to say

Nico Rosberg, 6th place:

Nico was quite pleased with his result: “First of all because in qualifying we had the potential to be in the top five, and secondly we had a really good strategy in the race. My start was not good, so being able to eventually finish in sixth place is a nice result for us.

And hopefully it's the start of an upward trend, before our next home race in Germany, so I'm looking forward to confirming our performance at the Nürburgring. In the next few days, we will analyse the whole weekend with our new developments on the car, and will work hard on improving it even further.

Michael Schumacher, 9th place:

My result today is a bit of a shame, and of course I am not happy about it. I think fifth or even fourth place would not have been out of question today thanks to the superb job the guys back in Brackley and Brixworth have done. I would so much have wished to bring them some decent points this evening when we go back to the factory for a BBQ with their families.

But unfortunately, and due to my fault, I cannot. Having used DRS for the first time in the race, I was arriving at the corner with over-run. Underestimating the effect, my braking was not good and this is how the collision happened. It was right to get a penalty but why it had to be a stop-go, and not a drive-through penalty, I would like to understand better as I felt it was too hard. Anyway, the good thing is that step-by-step, the hard work of our team is paying off more and more, and this is a good feeling heading towards our next home race.

Ross Brawn:

After starting ninth and 13th respectively, Nico and Michael made was a good progress up the field. They had mixed fortunes at the start - Michael gained four positions, while Nico dropped three places as he lost out in the first few corners. Michael's race was obviously spoiled by his collision and it carried a double penalty, as he did a slow lap to the pits and then had the stop-go penalty. However, after that he drove very well and climbed back from as low as 17th to score two points.
Nico's race was more straightforward, but we set him a real challenge asking him to go the end of the race from lap 30, and he did an extremely solid job to achieve that. This was the first race for this car specification, with new exhaust outlets and aerodynamic developments, and we had only an hour of dry running, mainly with one car, before qualifying. With that in mind, we can be encouraged by our performance today. One of our previous difficulties had been making the tyres last properly, but both drivers managed to run over 115km on a set of options this afternoon, which suggests we have made some good progress in this area.

Norbert Haug:

Nico lost three places on lap one whereas Michael gained four. Taking into consideration that Nico completed the first lap in 12th, sixth place is a respectable result. We showed today that we could handle the tyres during a two-stop strategy, when most of the top ten finishers chose three stops. Michael had an eventful race, touching Kobayashi's Sauber in the early stages, which forced him into the pits early for a nose change, and some laps later, a stop-go penalty. He then dropped back to 17th, so his recovery to ninth place was impressive. Well done to our team at one of our home races. We all will work very hard to further improve our package for our next home race at the Nürburgring in a fortnight.

Full Race Results:
Drivers
1 F Alonso (ESP) Ferrari
2 S Vettel (GER) Red Bull
3 M Webber (AUS) Red Bull
4 LC Hamilton (GBR) McLaren
5 F Massa (BRA) Ferrari
6 N Rosberg (GER) Mercedes-Benz
7 S Perez (MEX) Sauber
8 N Heidfeld (GER) Renault
9 M Schumacher (GER) Mercedes-Benz
10 J Alguersuari (ESP) Toro Rosso
11 A Sutil (GER) Force India
12 V Petrov (RUS) Renault
13 RG Barrichello (BRA) Williams
14 P Maldonado (VEN) Williams
15 P di Resta (GBR) Force India
16 T Glock (GER) Virgin
17 J d'Ambrosio (BEL) Virgin
18 V Liuzzi (ITA) HRT
19 D Ricciardo (AUS) HRT

**Scourge82** · 07-11-2011, 06:02 AM

Awesome race! Glad Vettel didn't win even if Alonso won it. It pissed everyone off at the race when we found out that Webber was ordered not to pass Vettel and keep his distance. i was already mad that they gave Schumi a 10 sec stop and go penalty rather than the normal drive through one. That ruined his race. If it wasn't for the penalty he could have finished 5th or even 4th. I did get a bunch of pictures, once I get off work, I'll get them uploaded. The schumi pic above is one of the ones I took.

**DavidV** · 07-11-2011, 07:27 AM

The FIA had decided before the race that there would be no drive through, but only stop and go penalties, due to the pitstreet layout. Because you cut 2 corners the time penalty would not be sufficient with a drive through, so they said.
All penalties were stop and go. MS was no exeption.
Starting a race with half the circuit soaked and half the circuit dried out made for an interesting race. Where were you on the circuit Scourge?

**Scourge82** · 07-11-2011, 07:44 AM

I didn't hear about FIA's decision for the penalty rules. I guess quite a few people (even Mercedes GP) didn't either cause alot of them were wondering why he got that harsh of a penalty. They could have just lowered the speed in the pits. 10 seconds in the pits is a very long time. Close to 30-40 sec of race time.

I was sitting on the Farm Curve stands. I could see the first corner, the pit exit, and through the S curves at Village. I got to see Kobi's engine go and Button's retirement. If you're a racing fan, F1 is a must to see live.

**GTR-Dad** · 07-11-2011, 09:56 AM

Great writeup! You capture the excitement very well.

I was over at a friend's place to watch it live at 6 AM. What a great race! Camera work was incredible and the excitement second to none. (Made up for Valencia...)

The pits contained greater than average excitement too. Everything from missing wheel nuts to near collisions (resulting in violation of Force India's air gun), to the longest 10 seconds in sports.

Dan

**Scourge82** · 07-11-2011, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by GTR-Dad

Great writeup! You capture the excitement very well.

I was over at a friend's place to watch it live at 6 AM. What a great race! Camera work was incredible and the excitement second to none. (Made up for Valencia...)

The pits contained greater than average excitement too. Everything from missing wheel nuts to near collisions (resulting in violation of Force India's air gun), to the longest 10 seconds in sports.

Dan

Thanks man! Yup the race was exciting from start to finish, Silverstone always delivers.

Here's a couple of pics from the qualifying session:

Here's the link to the full gallery
http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b6...%20Qualifying/

Once the race pics are done uploading, I'll post a link to it.

**Sticky** · 07-11-2011, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by Scourge82

Alonso won his first race this year in his Ferrari. It was a special victory for the team, They won their first race here 60 years ago. Alonso capitalized on a botched pit stop which saw him pass Vettel, who was the race leader. Vettel finished second after Team Red Bull told Webber, who came in third to back off, which prevented him from passing Vettel for second place. Hamilton came in third mear inches ahead of Massa. Rosberg finished 6th after dropping to 12th place at the start, who had a relatively quiet race. Schumacher, who started 13th, worked his way up to 9th place, On lap 9 he made contact with Kobayashi after trying to pass him and lost his front wing. After getting a new wing and swapping to dry soft tires, he climbed back up to 7th place, but then was slapped with a 10 sec stop and go penalty for his collision earlier. Schumi ended up finishing the race in 9th place.

Here's a run down of what the team had to say

Nico Rosberg, 6th place:

Michael Schumacher, 9th place:

Ross Brawn:

Norbert Haug:

Full Race Results:
Drivers
1 F Alonso (ESP) Ferrari
2 S Vettel (GER) Red Bull
3 M Webber (AUS) Red Bull
4 LC Hamilton (GBR) McLaren
5 F Massa (BRA) Ferrari
6 N Rosberg (GER) Mercedes-Benz
7 S Perez (MEX) Sauber
8 N Heidfeld (GER) Renault
9 M Schumacher (GER) Mercedes-Benz
10 J Alguersuari (ESP) Toro Rosso
11 A Sutil (GER) Force India
12 V Petrov (RUS) Renault
13 RG Barrichello (BRA) Williams
14 P Maldonado (VEN) Williams
15 P di Resta (GBR) Force India
16 T Glock (GER) Virgin
17 J d'Ambrosio (BEL) Virgin
18 V Liuzzi (ITA) HRT
19 D Ricciardo (AUS) HRT

http://www.benzboost.com/images/impo...65b5fc_b-1.jpg

There we go! I was waiting for this. Nicely done!