Red Bull poaches Mercedes staff
Red Bull has continued its raid of Mercedes’ Formula 1 engine department, from which it has now poached six staff for its new powertrains division.
Red Bull announced in February that it would be building its F1 power units in-house from next year as Red Bull Powertrains, after acquiring the IP from existing engine supplier Honda at the end of 2021.
The team revealed last month that it had signed Ben Hodgkinson, the head of mechanical engineering at Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, to be the technical director for the engine arm.
But a bigger statement came last week when a further five senior positions were filled, with the quintet consisting entirely of Mercedes employees.
Mercedes head of manufacturing Steve Blewett will become Red Bull’s power unit production director. Omid Mostaghimi, Mercedes’ F1 electronics team leader, will be Red Bull’s head of powertrains, electronics and ERS. Pip Clode, who is Mercedes’ F1 power unit concept team leader, will join Red Bull as head of mechanical design ERS. Anton Mayo, a Mercedes engineering team leader, will be head of power unit design ICE, while Mercedes F1 trackside and final inspection manager Steve Brodie will become Red Bull’s Group Leader ICE Operations.
The team has also appointed a head of mechanical development, who will be named in the coming weeks.
Red Bull F1 chief Christian Horner said there was an “inevitability” that staff from Mercedes would be approached, given the proximity of the HPP base at Brixworth to the Red Bull campus in Milton Keynes.
“We’re only 30 miles up the road from Brixworth where Mercedes have chosen to build their engines in the UK,” said Horner. “And they’ve done that for a reason because the talent is within the UK. I think for us, bringing the engines on site within the campus, fully integrating it with the chassis is tremendously appealing. We’ve been very flattered by the amount of approaches that we’ve had. Of course, we’re starting with a clean sheet of paper and it’s important to get the right people in the right positions.”
The change in allegiance of these Mercedes figures comes against the backdrop of the title fight against Red Bull this year. But neither current points leader Lewis Hamilton nor runner-up Max Verstappen were overly surprised to hear about the moves.
“When a team has been so dominant for such a long time, you will try to get those kinds of people,” said Verstappen. “But also I think it’s an interesting new project to be part of, from our side. When people are in the same place for a long time, I think sometimes they want to seek new challenges. That’s understandable.”
“If there are people that have moved on, I wish them all the best,” Hamilton said of his outgoing colleagues. “We all have to go through our own journeys and make our own decisions, which are right for us. But this is a huge team – it’s a big team and it’s not about one individual, or even five. It’s about a collective.”
The idea of continuing team unity is what Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff emphasised in the wake of the announcement, revealing that Red Bull had approached “in all 100 people or so, and they got 15 maybe”.
“Losing 10 or 15 or more will not change the collective strengths of the group,” said Wolff. “There is no destabilisation whatsoever, because the group is so
big. Performance is being made by the power of the group, and not single individuals.”
Red Bull motorsport chief Helmut Marko was quoted in the German press saying that Mercedes was offering to double the salary of staff to rebuff Red Bull’s advances. But Wolff said the “lottery number pay-cheques” being proposed by Red Bull were too big a lure for some of the Mercedes staff. “Internally it’s quite good to see the really loyal ones, that have been approached, is such an overwhelmingly larger number than the ones that were lured away,” said Wolff. “Seeing that loyalty and integrity in a way has confirmed the values of this group. There were some really good people that were approached.
And they haven’t even thought about it twice.”
The ongoing Mercedes staff will be replaced from within the HPP organisation, with Wolff saying it would “open up bottlenecks for younger engineers to come up”. “They have an opportunity now,” he said. “Organisations are dynamic organs and not static, and sometimes you are being pushed in such situations, sometimes you take your own decisions, but overall you can make it an opportunity rather than a risk.”
The signings by Red Bull are set to be tasked with developing an all-new power unit for the next generation of regulations due in 2025, which the company is preparing for without a partner manufacturer. “We have further signings that will be announced in due course,” said Horner. “But it’s tremendously exciting, and the quality of talent that we’re bringing to this project, it’s great to see.”