Former Mercedes motorsport boss, Norbert Haug has hit out at his countrymen over Germany’s perspective in the direction of F1.
Whereas not fairly accusing his countrymen of solely ‘singing after they’re successful’, Haug, who was instrumental in bringing the Mercedes identify again to F1 nearly 40 years after its withdrawal from motorsport over the 1955 Le Mans catastrophe, says that Germany’s perspective in the direction of the game is “a tragedy”.
Having introduced the Mercedes identify again to SportsCars and DTM, in 1993 he oversaw the Three Pointed Star enter F1 in partnership with Sauber, although initially there was no precise reference to Mercedes. The next yr, alongside its entry to the CART sequence, Mercedes formally badged the engines, inbuilt partnership with Ilmor, on the Sauber vehicles.
From 1995, Mercedes partnered with McLaren, however in 2009 it was introduced that Daimler AG and Emirati sovereign wealth fund Aabar Investments had bought a 75.1% stake within the former Honda group which was now rebranded as Brawn GP. Having received each titles in its solely season within the sport, the Brackley-based outfit was rebranded as Mercedes in 2010, with Brawn and Haug main the mission.
Nonetheless, the arrival of Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda was to see Haug, a former journalist and racer, go away on the finish of 2012, with Brawn following swimsuit a yr later.
Although F1 nonetheless attracts round 3 times the TV viewers that the game enjoys within the US, the game is actually on its knees. Whereas at one stage, throughout the peak of the Schumacher years, it hosted two races, since Nico Rosberg received at Hockenheim in 2014 there have been simply 4 races, the latest being the unexpectedly organised Eifel Grand Prix on the Nurburgring on the peak of the pandemic.
“In Germany, System 1 has was a tragedy that each motorsport fanatic can solely be ashamed of,” he tells RND.
“Between 1994 and 2016, there have been German world champions like an meeting line,” he continues, “seven titles from Michael Schumacher, 4 in a row from Sebastian Vettel and eventually the final one thus far from Nico Rosberg in 2016.
“Mercedes, with its companion groups McLaren and Brawn GP with Mika Hakkinen, Lewis Hamilton, and Jenson Button, received 4 drivers’ championships between 1998 and 2009, the Mercedes manufacturing unit group was constructors’ champion eight occasions in a row from 2014 to 2021, successful six world titles with Hamilton and one with Rosberg.
“For a dozen years, within the late Nineties and 2000s, there have been two System 1 races a yr in Germany, in entrance of full ranks and over 100,000 spectators. On RTL, 12 million folks watched, as an alternative of three million at present.
“In 2010, there have been nonetheless seven German System 1 drivers in a single season,” he recollects. “Right now, Nico Hulkenberg nonetheless has one in what’s, at greatest, a second-rate group, and Mick Schumacher is a promising substitute driver, however at the least in the appropriate group. There hasn’t been a German Grand Prix for a very long time.
“A zealous inexperienced auto objector couldn’t have developed a much less formidable and fewer profitable German System 1 technique. This particularly excludes the Mercedes works group, which, accurately, operates out of England and has two nice English drivers.”
