Mercedes will make a "big step" in 2011 – Haug

F1 Fanatic round-up

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Norbert Haug expects Mercedes to perform better in 2011.

Links

Rosberg: Mercedes GP will succeed (Crash)

Norbert Haug: “We have a fantastic crew, fantastic people and we are going to make a big step.”

Mosley admits Ferrari backing weakened his resolve (ESPN)

“My plan was to go through with [the budget cap] with the other teams, with Ferrari threatening to withdraw. I would have chanced it because we all know they wouldn’t really have gone. But then came the affair with the [News of the World] newspaper. Ferrari was the only team that stayed loyal, so I couldn’t really do something like that to them.”

Comment of the day

Voting is still open for who you thought was the best driver of 2010. Here’s Bosyber’s pick:

I voted for Hamilton in the end. It was close between him and Alonso, but I sat yesterday and remembered watching the races in the first half of the season, and Hamilton was really racing very well. His mistakes were for a large part not being cautious enough with overtaking and ending his race (not that of anyone else). Alonso instead seemed to suffer being too strained in getting good results in several of those races.

Apart from Australia when he found out why Button was champion in ’09 as he found him ahead on the road, Hamilton didn’t moan, but got on with the job as best he could.

Looking forward to seeing these two drivers fight it out in competitive cars for quite a few seasons more. Hamilton and his team would do well to work on fast in/out-laps to get those pit stops brushed up, as Alonso and Ferrari seem far ahead in that.
Bosyber

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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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28 comments on “Mercedes will make a "big step" in 2011 – Haug”

  1. i agree with all of this :)

  2. I wonder when Norbert will say Schumacher is the No 1 driver.

    1. When he starts consistently beating Rosberg ,So never!

  3. Uneventful day I see!
    Merry Christmas to all.

  4. Hey where is 2010 Bernie’s CHRISTMAS card?

  5. wait a minute, somethings wrong, neither Prisoner Monkey or basCD has commented yet?, are they ill?

    Merry Christmas to you guys and gals, your awesome.

  6. Its a shame Jesus doesn’t comment here, I think it’s his birthday today.

    Happy Holidays to all

    1. Really, Jesus wasn’t born the 25th December. The Nativity is celebrated this day because it takes the place of a pagan fest, I think celebrating their god of sun.

      1. I think he did born on the 25th of December, at 12:00am, didn’t he?

        1. “Glucklicher Geburtstages Jesus Christus”

          Norbert a better packaged car for the F1 Maestro in 2011 would be an ideal gift to all Schumi fans :)

  7. Merry Christmas to all F1Fanatic readers and to Keith who makes it all happen. Many thanks for all your hard work.

  8. Merry Christmas to all F1 Fanaticos. Happy New Year!

  9. Nice to see 11 minutes into Christmas day, and the round up is up! Merry Christmas Keith and all F1 fanatics.

  10. I’m still worried Mercedes are going to turn into the old Honda team, hopefully Big Norb will sort them out.

  11. What’s with all the Hamilton circlejerk? He came 3rd in the championship, Vettel, Alonso and Button did everything better than him.

    1. I agree with Vettel and Alonso, but I don’t know how you could say Button had a better year than Hamilton.

    2. Perhaps Button may have beaten Hamilton if it was the Captain Slow W.C. He would be better of replacing the Stig. Give Mclaren the chance to find a driver that can qualify.

  12. Mercedes day will come just like Santa does :) Merry Christmas all :)

    1. Go Schumi Go :) :) :)

      1. Happy days to all on F1 Fanatic.
        PS..Even you Todfod :)

        1. Merry Xmas to you too Dianna. And hope you all enjoy your holidays!

  13. Merry Christmass Everybody.

  14. Merry Christmas Keith and all the loyal F1fanatic readers…
    Its been an amazingly year and 2011 can only be better!
    Cheers all and have a safe New Years… :)

  15. Of course Mercedes is going to make a big step. The eternal “problem” is that the other teams make a big step as well.

    Somehow I don’t see Mercedes making the biggest step of them all.

    On the other hand they had the most time available. Their season was basically over after the first few races when their first “big step” update came and it bombed. The 3 top teams where fighting (ande developing)for the 2010 WDC till the last race.

    1. But BMW has shown rather convincingly in 2009 that “the most time” isn’t what is most important. Rather, having time to focus on the right issue (as Red Bull did for the RB5).

      Honda/Brawn showed that throwing a year and a lot of money into it you can even get there by just trying more or less everything – but that did also end the Honda effort, and only gave them one year of dominance for a year thrown away.

      Nice to see my post as COTD here :)

  16. The problem with the 2010 car was that it was conceived and created with change dug out of Ross Brawn’s sofa. No amount of “upgrades” were going to take that to the front. They are only just getting back on a solid organizational and financial footing now. I don’t expect much in 2011. They need to focus on staying ahead of Renault and Force India, and investing in their design capital.

  17. I watched the official review and I feel Hamilton was the best driver this year. In the first half he really raced his hearth out and did the most competitive overtaking maneuvers! McLaren had a backlash with the blown diffuser and lacked too much speed in the end.
    If that rim just hadn’t failed so close to the end in Spain…

Comments are closed.