sunny. slight difference! red bull bought a useless ford, whereas merc bought a wdc winning team. i reckon it would be a little easier for merc! your stats do not do justice to the bulls as they do not show what the base line was, whereas merc started with a baseline of 1 and have gone BACKWARDS.

The WDC winning team Mercedes bought was virtually stripped of resources (down to the bones).
The Jaguar team RBR bought from Ford although not a WDC winning team certainly wasn't missing any resources.
Prior to 2009 RBR/Newey had a much worse reliability record than most, not to mention the cars tending to fall apart even when going off the tarmac and without hitting anything, there was even some concern about the safety of the cars back then.

I'm expecting Nico to raise his game in 2013, and as he's so consistent i wouldn't be surprised if he's still ahead on points mid season. I expect Lewis to drive for wins not consistency

fish fingers
Wasnt Lewis consistent even racing for wins this year ?
he was ahead of his teammate with ease.

Lauda comes onboard, Haug bails. Well.................

F1-speak is like political-speak from the movie '1984' or a satanic verse in music.. (you have to listen to it backwards) -- Those of us who have been around F1-speak long enough . hears this the proper way. When Norbert Haug says --" Lauda not to blame for exit' What Haug really means to say is.. 'Lauda to blame for exit." the word 'INSISTS' was the icing on the cake -- Shakespeare comes to mind, 'The lady doth protest too much."

@Rob01 -- on paper (and in real money) Mercedes lost ground in wcc standing.. but I would argue that by finally winning a race, Merc actually GAINED ground. And i think they're fall-off the rest of he year was due in part to purposefully withdrawing from the 2012 arms race.. (aka in-season development) and Mercedes will gain ground in 2013 above their performance of any season so far. that single win, is what may have given Lewis Hamilton faith that there was enough spark in the mercedes engine for him to go there and try and help them move seriously up grid.

@roomtemperatureIQ what is your point? I'm obv talking about next season, he will be in a car not capable of winning a title, so its likely he will drive for occasional high place finishes rather than consistency

"We have the best engine and the best
drivers. Now we need to improve the
car a lot before the season says Lauda.
"Hans Stuck the president of Germany's motor sport federation, defended Haug by saying: "The failures in formula one are solely attributable to Ross Brawn. "The car was just not fast enough," he told the Focus newsmagazine in its Monday edition.
"He (Haug) was not the one who designed that car. He was the one who, after all those decades, made motor sport acceptable to Mercedes once again."
There may of been a hint of Hans Stuck defending his countryman but, I think the heat will be fully on Ross Brawn next year.

While Hans Stuck makes good points.. I remember Haug was able to easily co-exist with Ron Dennis at Mclaren, though his role was a bit different -- i got the impression that Haug would be taking a bigger role at Merc F1 -- perhaps having Norbert Haug and Ross Brawn together as principals was a case of too many chefs in the kitchen?
Maybe, Norbert Haug is stepping aside so that Ross Brawn can own it fully -- (success or failure).