Given that the announcement of Nico Rosberg’s signing for Mercedes GP was only made yesterday, months after the rumour was widely accepted as fact, you might expect today’s Circuit Breaker to focus on the achievements of the young German.

If not, the will-he-won’t-he rumours surrounding one Michael Schumacher’s possible return to the grid would seem to be the obvious topic. But neither Rosberg nor Schuey make the real Mercedes story.

Until Rosberg’s co-driver is formally announced, and we know whether the 24-year-old German will be the team’s number one driver or play the role of Barrichello to Michael’s Schumacher, it’s hard to establish Mercedes’ game plan for the foreseeable future. Will they be competing for championships from March onwards, or are they establishing the team with a longer aim in mind?

The length of Nico’s contract with Mercedes has not yet been publicly confirmed. It has been widely assumed, however, that one of the reasons Jenson Button signed with McLaren was due to the length of contract they offered: three years, over the one-year rolling contract on the table in Brackley. It remains to be seen whether Rosberg has accepted terms the champion was unwilling to accept, or if he signed a more favourable contract by virtue of signing with Brawn GP while the 2009 season was still ongoing.

Once contract details have been made public, assumptions about Mercedes’ game plan will either fall by the wayside or be confirmed.
The 2009 World Drivers’ Championship not withstanding, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton are generally considered to be two of the most exciting talents on the current grid. The prospect of watching the two of them go head to head over the next 10-15 years is as exciting as watching Senna vs Prost all over again.

The prospect of seeing them both in the same car, battling for on-track supremacy in near-identical equipment is almost too exciting to bear. ‘And what prospect is that?’, I hear you ask…

The announcement that Mercedes were buying into the Brawn GP marque with immediate effect also saw 2009 WDC Jenson Button leave the team he had worked with for years (regular name changes notwithstanding). Mercedes didn’t seem to want him on their works team, which is an unusual position for a world champ to be in. You would assume that Mercedes had their reasons, and I’m going to make some assumptions on their behalf.

Fact:  Mercedes want a German team, and they want at least one German driver. The dual-nationality Rosberg, son of Finn Keke, ticks that box.

Assumption: Mercedes want to win as many Grands Prix and Championships as possible.

Fact: Vettel, signed to Red Bull Racing until 2012, has more career points than any German driver on the grid except Heidfeld. Vettel has accumulated 125 points in 2 full seasons (43 starts); Heidfeld has picked up 219 in 10 seasons (167 starts).

Rosberg, for comparison’s sake, has picked up 75.5 points in the 70 races he has driven in since 2006.
Assumption: Mercedes want Vettel to race for them when his RBR contract expires, and are preparing the team now so they’re competitive in time for his arrival.

Now, while it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that Mercedes want Vettel, no one knows whether Vettel wants Mercedes. He came into RBR at a time when the team could be moulded around him, having deftly humiliated them in the previous season – Vettel’s 2008 results for Toro Rosso led to the junior team outscoring Red Bull proper. He has a good relationship with Christian Horner, team principal, and the advantage of driving an Adrian Newey-designed machine is not to be sniffed at. That said, neither is the advantage of working with Ross Brawn.

Where all this postulating really gets interesting is when you throw Lewis into the mix.

‘But Lewis will never leave McLaren – he’s McLaren through and through, and always will be!’ Maybe. But for as long as Lewis has been a McLaren man, he’s been a Mercedes man – the 15-year partnership just pre-dates Lewis introducing himself to Ron Dennis as a pre-pubescent Autosport award winner.  And more than being a McLaren man, Lewis is a racing man – he wants to drive, and he wants to win. This week marks the beginning of the end for the McLaren-Mercedes partnership. It might also mark the beginning of the end of McLaren dominating the fight for the constructors.

If McLaren do not deliver with the MP4-25, and if they fail to deliver for a third and fourth time with the MP4-26 and -27, Lewis will be on the hunt for a championship-contending drive in 2013. If McLaren are involved in yet another scandal in the interim, he could choose to leave his contract earlier than that.  If Lewis finds himself consistently out-manoeuvred by his new teammate, he will almost certainly be on the move as soon as he can.

And where’s a McLaren-Mercedes boy to go? Well, there’s always Mercedes…

by Kate Walker for Girlracer Magazine

www.girlracer.co.uk

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