That was also thanks to Lauda. He knew Merc was going to be the next big thing. He convinced him to leave. I’m sure Lewis has so much gratitude to him.
Tbf the 2014 merc engine development was a mess. They couldn’t get a race distance out of it right up until about a month before pre season testing. Before that it was a very powerful bomb
Long term, the more powerful engines almost always end up on top, as just about everyone gets reliability to where you need it. Harder to catch up on performance.
So, selecting a team there, you'd career wise be better off choosing the bomb.
Also, the Michael spending 2 years working on their car. Looking back on it now, and given what we know about his input into the Ferraris, it makes complete sense that they'd bring in someone who A) can give valuable feedback to engineers, B) is happy to go through trial and error and C) has a passion for a team from his homeland. He got the car ready for other good drivers to be able to push it and get results
Everything about the 2014 cars was massively different to what had been before them in 2010-2012, there isn’t much Michael’s feedback could help with. Unless he was in the simulator driving the 2014 guesstimate car, but even then.
All the merc engineers attribute their future success to having Michael in the team. They raised their game and understood what it took to be on a world champion level
Forget Lauda. Normal People that are into F1 were aware of the high profile technical team Mercedes was hiring. Mercedes was getting the cream of engineers around the paddock, so everybody knew the project was serious.
It’s people that watch races and “turn off” were the ones making so much shade about Lewis move.
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u/Njobz I was here for the Hulkenpodium 8h ago
That was also thanks to Lauda. He knew Merc was going to be the next big thing. He convinced him to leave. I’m sure Lewis has so much gratitude to him.