Legends come to life as new F1 season approaches

Mercedes bases the launch of its Formula One team on the drawing power of Michael Schumacher and the silver arrow

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By Juha Päätalo in Stuttgart
     
      At ten o’clock the curtain goes up on a bit of grand theatre outside the Mercedes Museum.
      Nico Rosberg drives a gleaming green Mercedes up to the main entrance.
      Michael Schumacher is seated next to him.
      The only sound that one can hear coming from the vehicle is the subdued rustle of its tyres against concrete.
      The text printed on the side of the car reveals the reason for the silence: 136 horsepower, 0.0 grams of carbon dioxide.
      The vehicle in question is the latest pride of the Mercedes laboratories: a fuel-cell car.
     
It takes a fair bit of imagination to understand quite what this particular masterpiece of engineering has to do with the Mercedes Formula One team, which is about to be launched at the museum.
      Mercedes will be taking part in this year’s F1 circus with a carbon dioxide monster equipped with an ordinary petrol-burning internal combustion engine, and will be doing so more self-assertively than ever before.
      The automobile giant has purchased the current World Champion team Brawn GP, rendered it German, and hired the seven-time Formula One world drivers' champion Michael Schumacher as its number one pilot.
     
"With today’s presentation of our new Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team, a new and certainly the most important chapter of over 100 years of Mercedes-Benz motorsport history begins," declares Mercedes sports boss Norbert Haug.
      "In Germany there aren’t very many world-class stars, but we have two: Michael Schumacher and Mercedes-Benz", beams Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler-Benz, Mercedes's parent company.
     
Mercedes has chosen a completely opposite direction to its German arch-rival BMW, which announced last summer that it would be abandoning the Formula One circuits, because the sport clashes with the brand’s principles of environmental consciousness.
      Ferrari and Mercedes are now the only two car manufacturers competing in F1 under their own names.
      Team Renault, which also still competes in the series, no longer belongs to the car manufacturer. Instead, a majority of the team’s shares have been sold to a Luxemburg-based investment company.
      The German automobile manufacturer, in turn, is sparing no expense and celebrating the rebirth of two German legends - Michael Schumacher and the Silver Arrow.
     
There is a sense of history being repeated when the Mercedes mechanics push the team’s new vehicle onto the stage.
      The newcomer by the name of MGP W01 shimmers in a shade of matt grey reminiscent of the original aluminium-clad Silver Arrow from 1934.
      The last time Mercedes took part in a Formula One race under its own name was almost equally long ago. The year was 1955.
      Among the Mercedes people, the sense of pride is palpable, even if the car on stage is actually last year’s Brawn GP given a superficial makeover.
      The real new car will not be ready until the February 1st testing session in Valencia.
     
But mere reminiscing of the glory days of the past is not enough on Year One after the Great Economic Crisis.
      Zetsche declares, turning especially to the Mercedes workers present, that taking part in the Formula One circuit makes good business sense for the group.
      “If it was just about motorsports, we would have ditched Formula One”, Zetsche says.
      “But this is also a question of image. A car manufacturer that is victorious in the F1 arena will also win future clients. This secures jobs in the entire group.”
     
Zetsche adds that the Formula One effort takes up a mere 1.4 per cent of the group’s research and development budget - in other words around EUR 40 million per year.
      Or, interestingly enough,  a quarter of what Mercedes used to pay for the cooperation with McLaren only five years ago.
      Because Mercedes cannot allow BMW to be the only one brandishing its environmental consciousness, Zetsche justifies the appearance of the fuel-cell car at the launch.
      “We want to be the World Champions also in ‘Formula Green’.”
     
The Daimler-Benz CEO is a good actor.
      But even this cannot hide the fact that ‘Formula Green’ is only a word made up by Zetsche himself, unlike the risk investment called Formula 1.
      The investment will prove profitable only if the team reaps success.
      Zetsche formulates the company’s objective clearly enough: “We want to be the champions.”
      “We will be in a very good position to fight for the championships this season”, Michael Schumacher adds.
      The 41-year-old German comeback kid radiates enthusiasm like a little boy before his summer holidays.
      The same cannot be said for 24-year-old Rosberg, who looks the entire day as though he has eaten something for breakfast that really did not agree with him.
     
Rosberg signed his contract with Mercedes at a time when there were not even any wild rumours of Schumacher’s return to the sport.
      The son of former World Champion Keijo "Keke" Rosberg was to become the German hero behind the wheel of the reborn Silver Arrow.
      In Stuttgart, Rosberg is mentioned in every speech about three sentences after Schumacher, and even then primarily in a dependent relative clause.
      Already before the launch function, Rosberg had to surrender the number 3 that had been reserved for him to Schumacher, who superstitiously dreads even numbers. Then again, during his career Schumacher has probably also got used to having a "1" on the side of his car - the property of the reigning champion.
      "Of course I was a little bit doubtful at first regarding Michael’s relationship with Ross Brawn, " Rosberg says, "But I have been assured we will receive equal treatment."
      All the same, in Nico's acting skills there is still room for improvement.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.1.2010


Links:
  Nico Rosberg (Wikipedia)
  Silver Arrows (Wikipedia)
  Mercedes GP Petronas Formula One Team
  Formula One
  Michael Schumacher (Wikipedia)

JUHA PÄÄTALO / Helsingin Sanomat