Haug admits Mercedes failed

Poor Michael Schumacher's F1 return was ruined by an inferior Mercedes car

Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug says his team's development was "not good enough" in 2012, but expects it to do better in 2013.

At the Chinese Grand Prix this year Mercedes won its first race since returning to the sport in 2010, but after a mid-season slump it finished five of the final six races without scoring a point. Haug said the drop in performance was for several reasons, one of which was the team's late adoption of a Conada-effect exhaust.

"I think the team showed last year that over the winter we built quite a good car, but definitely since the middle of the season in the development race we have not been good enough and, in hindsight, we should have started much earlier with Coanda exhaust because it gives you a benefit if you can manage it properly," Haug said.

"Maybe in our case we also suffered a little bit from rear tire stuff, with them being too hot and probably not having enough downforce. Then in addition the Coanda has probably just accelerated these problems. So we did not handle it in the best possible way. That's not an excuse but an explanation.

Haug also explained that Mercedes had enlarged its wind tunnel during the season at the cost of development time with the W03.

"Switching from 50% to 60% [model in the wind tunnel], which is absolutely what you have to do, costs you time [of roughly] six to eight weeks in the wind tunnel when you cannot continuously work," he added. "This did not help us either, but you have to do that now otherwise you will suffer next year." ESPN.com