Stone Brothers Racing Mercedes in 2013

no1holdenfan, Sep 18, 4:26pm

granada, Sep 18, 4:30pm
A million dollar budget by Mercedies will hardly buy four hubcaps. Its good to see a few more taxis in the race.

ebygum1, Sep 18, 4:36pm
I understand that Daniel Jilleson,a Mercedes staff member has been working with Ross Stones son on a race car. Maybe some connection there.

splinter67, Sep 18, 4:37pm
It will be good for racing at least it will give ford someone to race for second place but the 1 mill budget is a bit light at that the fords might be able to beat them

kwkbrk, Sep 18, 4:38pm
SLS AMG or C63 AMG, which ever they choose, can barely be described as taxis !
Either way, will raise the bar for all concerned.

stockyz, Sep 18, 4:42pm
not with cotf. I dont think it will make that much of a differencejust another badge like nissan

smac, Sep 18, 4:46pm
Yeah I was doing some reading on COTF the other day. There is still conflicting info on whether it's just a control chassis, or also a control engine. Elsewhere again they say a control engine is available but they can use their own if they like (subject to parity changes to induction and cams etc). Seems kinda late to still be debating this stuff.

floscey, Sep 18, 4:55pm
What you going to do Splinter when 888 change away from Holden!

splinter67, Sep 18, 5:16pm
I will continue to support Holden but why would 888 move away from an awesome car and I did like the way frosty tried to take out whincup cant beat them take them out havent we seen that done at another racetrack this season.

smac, Sep 18, 5:20pm
They already did that.

gman35, Sep 18, 5:39pm
So is Merc going to use a Merc engine and suspension etc , or is it just a wildly spoilered-up Merc body and "heavily changed same engine and susp". like Ford & Holden use !Either way this Supercar stuff is so far removed from your average Falc. and Comm. that I fail to see the point of all of it , unlike the old Group A class.where cars looked and were mostly engineered as they were from factory, not to mention the variety of different makes/sizes/speeds in the fist place.

splinter67, Sep 18, 5:44pm
Yup they did they moved away from Vauxall (another GM product ) went to ford then they relished they where going to loose so went back to the far superior Gm product

phillip.weston, Sep 18, 5:45pm
they will conform to the car of the future racing specs, so will be a 'standardised' chassis, suspension and gearbox however the engine is free for the manufacturer to use their own, or use the control engine if they like. It will have customised panels made to fit around the space frame chassis.

gman35, Sep 18, 5:55pm
Back to my comment then , why do they bother when it is becoming something like F1 but just slower/bigger/with doors !

attitudedesignz, Sep 18, 6:02pm
It will be an E class, no AMG bodies (read: Shell panels) AMG will be doing engines as they have capcity now that quite a few of their global programs have either scaled down or stopped.

Remember this post as the start of history because.This is the start of Ross & Jimmy to distancing them selves from V8s. Jimmy has been wanting to "get out" for awhile now & with a "deal" done with Erebus Racing don't be too surprised when Ross & Jimmy sell to Betty Klimenko.

smac, Sep 18, 6:03pm
I take it you're not a race fan, so wonder why you'd post here. ANyone who's followed this, or ever seen them up close know they're NOTHING like open wheeler racing.

gman35, Sep 18, 6:12pm
I am a racing fan certainly, but think that calling them by their brand and the whole Ford vs Holden and HSV / FPV advertising on them etc is "drawing a long bow" , would prefer they were much closer to the actual road cars in concept / engineering. Probably "Nascar with more corners" would be a better description then!

smac, Sep 18, 6:19pm
Why do you care what they call them!

gman35, Sep 18, 6:45pm
Don't care what they call them , I just don't see why some "brand-aware" people get carried away with this "Ford vs Holden vs whoever" form of competition when they are almost unrecognizable as the original car. For example Group A was easier for most to relate to because the Commodore SS / Falcon / Nissan GTR / BMW M3 you could buy was identical in bodywork and basically the same engine as the race car. I am saying what's the point of having different brands when they are so heavily modified to be so similar ! (and that's without even mentioning "control components" ).

gemmigem, Sep 18, 6:51pm
However it goes , 2013 will be an interresting season , every team will be basicly starting with a clean sheet .

smac, Sep 18, 7:11pm
Well because the body work is still based on the showroom car.just don't get why you're raising it if you don't care.

I agree on one point - getting into the whole Ford/Holden thing is just idiotic. I attended the first Hamilton round. There were some knuckle draggers (to borrow a term) who had taken control of one of the tiered seats, and were only letting people in who they wanted to 'allow' to sit there. Their first question was "are you Ford or Holden!". I said "neither, I'm here to watch some racing" and we pushed our way in. He just didn't get it. The fact that I didn't care one way or the other was just too much for his little brain. He sat there sulking and looking at me sideways like I was some kinda deviant.

gemmigem, Sep 18, 7:16pm
Small minds are easily fooled by religous cults

alby100, Sep 18, 7:19pm
Plenty of E-class cabs when I was in Europe