Moving F1-Staff

[maygun]

When it will stop??? We can downplay it but reading the last 10 pages on this thread Mercedes is losing by far the most senior engineers compared to the other top teams. Ferrari and Red Bull to had big organisation but it is nowhere this bleeding. The 1200 employees before the budget cap it is only sand in the eyes because many of them are from Brixworth not Brackley. The key to understand their difficulties is here, in this informations, not correlation, wind tunnel, or slow thinking. They go for cheap yound engineers or they pride with arrogance that they can promote from within. That ,,within" is not enough and they should be more humble. In the first years or of the next regulation all this problems will be masked by the superior engine and the better integration compared to other engine car or with their own customers. But they will be gradually caught when the others will build better chassis, better suspension systems, better aerodynamic platforms.

Toto runs the team as a company; he is a businessman first, not a sportsman. As long as the team is in the green, he wouldn't care too much about winning, hence not caring about recruiting top talent.

Personally, I think that’s a very narrow view. Every top team, across decades, has struggled with losing top talent.

Highly talented people often seek new challenges — whether it’s to grow their skills, experience a different environment, make a lifestyle change, or due to personal reasons like relocating. It’s normal. People move on for a wide variety of reasons.

Mercedes isn’t the first, the only, or the last top team to face this challenge. They've simply enjoyed a long run with exceptional talent, and now it’s part of the natural cycle that some of those people are moving on.

As for the idea that Toto Wolff isn’t interested in sporting achievement — that’s laughable. He’s every bit as competitive as any other team principal. He just expresses it in his own way — and if you’ve paid attention over the years, that approach has delivered huge success.

One more thing worth mentioning is the budget cap. One of its key purposes was to stop the biggest teams from hoarding all the top talent and locking others out. Before, a top team could afford to stack its entire organisation with the best people across every department. Now, under the cap, teams have to make tough decisions. You can’t have a massive design department and still maintain depth everywhere else. This forces teams to spread talent more evenly and opens up opportunities for others — ultimately making the grid more competitive... Which we are seeing

I agree with the part that highly talented people seeking new challenges part, but when your team's most senior figures leave and you dont bring a replacement and just hire new grads, that's accepting defeat in every league.

Just ignoring the HPP side, some people who left the chassis/aero and operation side: Mike Elliot, Loric Serra, James Vowles, Eric Blandin, Gioacchino Vino, Jérôme d’Ambrosio.

I dont remember any big arrivals except Simone Resta and maybe Enrico Sampo.

And the team lost these members after the cost cap, not before, if I remember correctly.

Just my impression/speculation, Toto does not believe in technical talent as much as he believes in his ability to operate the team.

[mclaren_mircea]

Toto runs the team as a company; he is a businessman first, not a sportsman. As long as the team is in the green, he wouldn't care too much about winning, hence not caring about recruiting top talent.

Personally, I think that’s a very narrow view. Every top team, across decades, has struggled with losing top talent.

Highly talented people often seek new challenges — whether it’s to grow their skills, experience a different environment, make a lifestyle change, or due to personal reasons like relocating. It’s normal. People move on for a wide variety of reasons.

Mercedes isn’t the first, the only, or the last top team to face this challenge. They've simply enjoyed a long run with exceptional talent, and now it’s part of the natural cycle that some of those people are moving on.

As for the idea that Toto Wolff isn’t interested in sporting achievement — that’s laughable. He’s every bit as competitive as any other team principal. He just expresses it in his own way — and if you’ve paid attention over the years, that approach has delivered huge success.

One more thing worth mentioning is the budget cap. One of its key purposes was to stop the biggest teams from hoarding all the top talent and locking others out. Before, a top team could afford to stack its entire organisation with the best people across every department. Now, under the cap, teams have to make tough decisions. You can’t have a massive design department and still maintain depth everywhere else. This forces teams to spread talent more evenly and opens up opportunities for others — ultimately making the grid more competitive... Which we are seeing

I agree with the part that highly talented people seeking new challenges part, but when your team's most senior figures leave and you dont bring a replacement and just hire new grads, that's accepting defeat in every league.

Just ignoring the HPP side, some people who left the chassis/aero and operation side: Mike Elliot, Loric Serra, James Vowles, Eric Blandin, Gioacchino Vino, Jérôme d’Ambrosio.

I dont remember any big arrivals except Simone Resta and maybe Enrico Sampo.

And the team lost these members after the cost cap, not before, if I remember correctly.

Just my impression/speculation, Toto does not believe in technical talent as much as he believes in his ability to operate the team.

Top class comment. This is the idea. All the philosophical teory with the challenges with the enviroment in the first comment it does not stand.... the PEOPLE GO WHERE IS POWER, MONEY AND DOMINANCE. every team have influx and outflux of engineers, like in normal company... but when you lose all that people Mike Elliot, Loric Serra, James Vowles, Eric Blandin, Gioacchino Vino, Jérôme d’Ambrosio+ Paddy Lowe, Geoff Willis, Aldo Costa, Phill Prew and in this 6-7 years you lose all of them and bring only James Allison, Simone Resta and another italian guy on simulation is not good enough. I dont say that they didnt bring some young and mid level engineers from Alpine, Williams, Racing Bulls is indeed accepting defeat. You cant lose so many EXPERCIENCED AND HIGH RANKING SENIOR ENGINEERS and bring almost nothing is accepting defeat. Where are the times when they poched Phil Prew and Paddy Lowe in a single bite from Mclaren? or when they took chuncks of Red Bull and Ferrari HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS in the 2010-2013?? Life if brutal, is ruthless, so is sport and F1. If you become complacent and you stay in your confort zone with what you have in hous you are doomed for faillure in the end. Mclaren sold their facilities, sold their building at MTC, sold their historical cars, sold their automotive division, but they used money to build a new wind tunnel, to buil a new simulator and what is more important to recruit strongly experienced engineers from other teams. I know the budget cap but Daimler and a billionaire as Jim Ractliffe can do best to use their financial muscle, their vast organisations outside the F1 to make it clear to all the better engineers that Mercedes is the biggest shark in the tank, not Mclaren or other indipendent team like Williams etc. You have to be brutal, cynical, without mercy, go an poach the best brains in F1. If you are such a huge organisation like Mercedes Groul find all the underwater mechanisms to get the best people at Brackley. You have a whole continent, you have Germany, you have an enormous industrial base, and you have a priceless U.K base in Brackley. Direct all the forces to the victory of Mercedes. Im starting to think that Ross Brawn was the prime factor in building that succes, and Totto only preserved it and started very slowly but iremediable to lose that huge pool of talent. Why didnt they compete with the blank checheques that Red Bull Power Train offered to their people. Offe rmore, try with all your teeth to not let them go, offer more money, intimidate them, press them. Aston, Ferrari, Williams did the same on their chassis engineers.

[Mr Brooksy]

I don’t want to clog up this thread with arguments, as it’s been focused on personal movements — but briefly, in response to your logical comment MAYGUN (since Mr McLaren seems to have an awfully short memory and appears far too emotional to have a proper conversation), let’s look at the actual dates of the departures you listed:

Mike Elliott – October 2023

Loïc Serra – starts at Ferrari in October 2024

James Vowles – January 2023

Eric Blandin – announced November 2021, moved early 2022

Gioacchino Vino – May 2024

Jérôme d’Ambrosio – joining Ferrari in October 2024


The cost cap began in January 2021 — so every person you mentioned left after the cap came into force.

Others, like Paddy Lowe, were offered more by Williams than Mercedes were willing to pay. From memory, I believe Paddy was after part ownership or something similar.

All hugely successful teams lose key personnel. But assuming they can just “hire the next best” oversimplifies how difficult that really is. You can’t force people to stay. You can’t just throw more money at them anymore. And most of the other top names are under contract, which means you can’t simply buy them out like in the old days. I’ve heard Wolff say on several occasions that Mercedes believe they have depth in their talent pool — which is probably why they haven’t just gone poaching other top-tier names (even if they could afford it).

I get your frustration — I really do. My team, Williams, has had its fair share of pain losing the best of the best, even when we were dominating. We’ve only just started to claw our way out of the worst situation I’ve ever seen a championship-winning team go through (short of those who’ve folded or been sold off like Tyrrell, Brabham, etc). And Williams fans still talk about the misstep that led to Adrian Newey leaving for McLaren over 30 years ago.

We’ve seen eras come and go — Williams and McLaren ruled the ’80s, then Williams, Benetton, and McLaren in the ’90s. Ferrari crushed all under Todt in the early 2000s. Then Renault and McLaren swept up top talent (and even some plans) to win. There was the Brawn anomaly, followed by Red Bull’s first dominant era, then Mercedes' domination for over a decade — and n then Red Bull dominated again in the early ground-effect era. McLaren are clearly on top this year.

As much as we want our teams to stay untouchable forever, history shows that it just doesn’t work like that — no matter how deep your pockets are, or how loyal your people may be.

[diffuser]

This isn't the place to do it but the lack of high paid replacements is easy to explain, it's the CAP. Merc was way above the CAP before the CAP came into effect. So they've had to keep to 3 highest paid people, like all the other teams. So the team has naturally bled out high quality experienced engineers and replaced them with university hires.

Sorry you feel frustrated but you're now feeling the frustration that all but the top 3 teams felt for decades. McLaren's were the team in the best position to benefit from the CAP, they had the best resources of the non top 3. The top teams still have an edge but it's closer than it ever been.