Mercedes can be successful in 2013, unlike previous seasons, according to Michael Schumacher who retired from the team and the sport at the end of 2012.
The German believes they now have the required structure and technical team in place to design and continually develop a competitive car – something he says wasn’t present during his tenure at the team.
“In the first two years, we definitely did not have the capability to fight on several fronts,” he told Auto Motor und Sport. “If there were problems we had to take care of them, so the development process was interrupted.
“Only now is there a structure that enables both,” Added Schumacher. “It’s a strong structure for 2013 and beyond.
“The car we had last year was built under the old conditions. I’m talking about quantity, not quality. That has always been the reason why development stagnated.”
Whilst Mercedes made several management changes for the 2012 season in order to address these issues, Schumacher says it takes time for the results to become noticeable – though he admitted he was surprised things didn’t pick up toward the end of the year.
“Why that was still the case last year I do not understand,” he said. “We created the basic conditions for [the team] to move forward. Maybe a few cogs in our structure had to mesh before that happens,” he explained.
