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Originally Posted by Deschodt
I hear you but I think that was more to bond with the guys and curry favor with the team, than to "redesign" a car. I don't think Lewis staying in the garage till midnight in his parachute pants will help in any way to resign a flawed Aero concept. It's not like he's gonna help design or glue new sidepods on, or blow on the floor to see if the car porpoises less ;-) Same with Lauda, he was a great driver and a no BS leader of sorts but I sincerely doubt either of those guys knew anythign about modern aero calculations...
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LOL yeah I don't think Lewis would be much of an asset in the garage.
From the movie SHUMACHER, I got the impression
he was working with the mechanics on the car.
He also had a strong influence on the entire team,
not just the car.
In the early 70's, the Ferrari cars were crap.
Lauda went to Ferrari as a driver in '74 IIRC and was
famous for almost getting fired for telling them
the car was crap.
He went to work with the mechanics and they fixed it,
mostly by removing weight and tuning suspension.
By the middle of '75 he was winning in the car.
He won the driver's championship in '75 and '77
and Ferrari won the constructors.
In 76 he took second to James Hunt after his burn injury
and his withdrawl
at the Japanese GP or he would have won the championship
three years in a row.
It was well detailed in the movie Rush
as well as other documentaries.
In '96, Ferrari hired Shumacher to drive
but their cars were again, crap.
They also hired Lauda as a team consultant.
A couple years later they were winning multiple
world championships and established a great dynasty.
In 2010, the Mercedes cars were crap.
They hired Schumacher as a driver in 2010 and Lauda
in 2012,
By 2014, Mercedes was winning
championships and established a great dynasty.
No coincidence as there's more to a winning
car than aerodynamics.
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In September 2012, Lauda was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport.[28] He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.[29]
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The (Ferrari) team had suffered a disastrous downturn in the early 1990s, partially as its famous V12 engine was no longer competitive against the smaller, lighter and more fuel-efficient V10s of its competitors.
Various drivers, notably Alain Prost, had given the vehicles labels such as "truck", "pig", and "accident waiting to happen".[54]
Furthermore, the poor performance of the Ferrari pit crews was considered a running joke.[17]
At the end of 1995, although the team had improved into a solid competitor, it was still considered inferior to front-running teams such as Benetton and Williams.[55]
However, Schumacher declared the Ferrari F310 good enough to win a championship,[56] although afterwards, his teammate Eddie Irvine labelled the F310 "an awful car", a "piece of junk", and "almost undriveable", while designer John Barnard admitted that the car "wasn't very good".[57]
During winter testing, Schumacher first drove a Ferrari, their 1995 Ferrari 412 T2, and was two seconds faster than former regulars Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger had been.[58]
Schumacher, Brawn, Byrne, and Jean Todt, have been credited as turning the struggling team into the most successful team in Formula One history.[59][60] Three-time World Champion Jackie Stewart believed the transformation of the Ferrari team was Schumacher's greatest feat.[61]
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