Mercedes is aiming to fight at the front alongside Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari in 2012, but as Sam Tremayne explains, the team knows there are no short cuts to the top step of the podium and that patience and more hard work is required

Good things come to those who wait. A well worn mantra perhaps, but it provoked a seismic shift in Guinness's fortunes when the brewer adopted it as an advertising slogan. Mercedes is preaching a similar message.

In the strictest sense, of course the team is not waiting – being idle is fatal in as fast-moving and relentless a sport as Formula 1. Nor should a patient approach imply passivity; an expectation that success will arrive by right rather than through endeavour. Mercedes is not expecting miracles, and that is precisely why it is being patient.

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