Stuttgart bunker: The Mercedes Grand Prix team are planning on introducing a new PR update at Silverstone in an attempt to make future press releases sound less implausibly optimistic, writes our Pollyanna correspondent, Chutney Bent.
Despite being over 6,000 points behind championship leaders Mclaren in the 2010 constructors’ championship, the German team have nonetheless insisted on talking upbeat nonsense about their increasingly improbable chances to a bemused media.
“We are not out of the championship yet”, team principal Ross Brawn recently burbled to a group of reporters, surprised they weren’t being addressed by the ex-Ferrari man lassoo’d firmly into a straitjacket; adding “we can close the gap with just a couple of good results”, somehow without bursting into manic giggling.
Driver PR Ant to Brawn’s car cheerleading Dec, peripheral grinning waxwork Nick Fry meanwhile, continued to talk up the increasingly confused meandering of lead driver Schumacher.
“Michael is doing an amazing job”, Fry gargled after a Canadian performance where his star driver was seen to wander all over the track like a drunken Irishman returning home from a wake.
Hands up if you’ve talked out of your arse recently
“Outside the team he may be getting criticism but inside there is absolutely no problem whatsoever”, he concluded, fixing everyone with a stare of tortured insincerity laced with the melancholy shadow of unmistakable self-loathing.
Conscious that the viewing public might believe the Silver Arrows – so called because, “former Nazis“ doesn’t sound quite as marketable – are simply a bunch of bullshitting Kraut chancers petrified their Schumacher gamble looks more preposterous than a cocaine-fuelled RBS stockmarket punt, Mercedes have announced a plan to cut the amount of snake oil style fibbery in future.
“In recent weeks we have been working hard at aligning our PR strategy”, team spokesperson, Helmut Hartgechochtesei announced.
“To streamline our message and avoid confusion regarding our intentions and abilities, we are introducing a system whereby Ross and Nick are constantly monitored for traces of barbiturates or other mind-altering stimulants like E’s, Domazepan or Tartrazine as well as updating their media training.”
Former Mercedes PR strategy to be scrapped, says company
“This will consist largely of instructing them not to so much as open their mouths to the fucking media unless we’re within mouth-shutting distance of them first or better still not to open their mouths to the fucking media, full stop.”
“With this plan in place we therefore hope to keep everyone abreast of future Mercedes GP news without everyone thinking it is merely the deluded mutterings of some deranged old has-beens swanning about believing it’s still about 2002”, he added.
Asked to comment on the development, Fry – who was being beaten over the head with a rolled up newspaper by a press aid trying to take his Kia Ora off him – remained unapologetic for his cheery fantasising.
“Mercedes is a really great team; a winning team. You know – like England.”, he said, before being subdued with a cocktail of pills and a high voltage stun gun.
