MANCHESTER
UNITED VS
MERCEDES
STAFF SAVED FROM
REDUNDANCY ARE
STILL PIVOTAL TO
MERCEDES TODAY
Brawn’s circumstancesmeant the Brackley
workforce had to be cutdrastically. Fry and
Brawn combed the payroll, weighing the case for
every member of staff. Certain people they chose
to keep are now vital parts of today’s winning
Mercedes machine: Jenson Button’s race
engineer Andrew Shovlin, team manager Ron
Meadows, and strategist James Vowles.
NickFry:“You have tolook at what you’ve left
behind, and what we left was agrea t team.
It continues to be that. We hiredsome fantastic
people– an d, to be fair to Adrian Reynard andBesides Mercedes-Benz, Bernie Ecclestone
and Air Asia magnate Tony Fernandes, other
parties to express an interest in buying the now-Craig Pollock [architects of British American
Racing, Honda’s previous incarnation], there
were people like Ron Meadows and Andrew
Shovlin who were there before I joined. Those
people have now worked together for over 20
years in some cases. It’s a very tightly knit team.
They can work together almost without speaking
becauseeach knows how the other will react.”race-winning team included the Glazer family,
owners of Manchester United. In Fry’s book
he describes how closethe Brawn stakeholders
came tochoosing the US sports magnates over`
a car manufacturer.
NickFry:“They [the Glazers] had the very
good idea of having Ross Brawn as an icon
of our industry alongside Sir Alex Ferguson
[the Man chester United manager] in the
same portfolio.
“There would have been potential economies
in getting sponsorship. Manchester United are
a machine on the commercial side and that
would have worked nicely fortwo entities. So
there was a lot of logic to it.
“From the conversations we had with
Ed Woodward, who’s now the chairman of
Manchester United and is a fantastically bright
character, from a personal point of view it
would have been greatfun. But theproblem
was that Mercedes were a better bet in terms
of having a proven F1 engine – a football team
doesn’t have one of those.
“We did the sensible thing, which was to
sell the teamto Mer cedes-Benz. There was a
temptation to carry on because we’d been very
successful, we’d beaten the odds, but the reality
is that two private individuals can’t run an F1
team. You’ve seen since then how great teams
such as Williams and McLaren have fallen by the
wayside. Unlessyou’ve got the backing of a big
entity you’ve got no chance.”MANCHESTER
UNITED VS
MERCEDES
STAFF SAVED FROM
REDUNDANCY ARE
STILL PIVOTAL TO
MERCEDES TODAY
Brawn’s circumstancesmeant the Brackley
workforce had to be cutdrastically. Fry and
Brawn combed the payroll, weighing the case for
every member of staff. Certain people they chose
to keep are now vital parts of today’s winning
Mercedes machine: Jenson Button’s race
engineer Andrew Shovlin, team manager Ron
Meadows, and strategist James Vowles.
NickFry:“You have tolook at what you’ve left
behind, and what we left was agrea t team.
It continues to be that. We hiredsome fantastic
people– an d, to be fair to Adrian Reynard and
Besides Mercedes-Benz, Bernie Ecclestone
and Air Asia magnate Tony Fernandes, other
parties to express an interest in buying the now-Craig Pollock [architects of British American
Racing, Honda’s previous incarnation], there
were people like Ron Meadows and Andrew
Shovlin who were there before I joined. Those
people have now worked together for over 20
years in some cases. It’s a very tightly knit team.
They can work together almost without speaking
becauseeach knows how the other will react.”race-winning team included the Glazer family,
owners of Manchester United. In Fry’s book
he describes how closethe Brawn stakeholders
came tochoosing the US sports magnates over`
a car manufacturer.
NickFry:“They [the Glazers] had the very
good idea of having Ross Brawn as an icon
of our industry alongside Sir Alex Ferguson
[the Man chester United manager] in the
same portfolio.
“There would have been potential economies
in getting sponsorship. Manchester United are
a machine on the commercial side and that
would have worked nicely fortwo entities. So
there was a lot of logic to it.
“From the conversations we had with
Ed Woodward, who’s now the chairman of
Manchester United and is a fantastically bright
character, from a personal point of view it
would have been greatfun. But theproblem
was that Mercedes were a better bet in terms
of having a proven F1 engine – a football team
doesn’t have one of those.
“We did the sensible thing, which was to
sell the teamto Mer cedes-Benz. There was a
temptation to carry on because we’d been very
successful, we’d beaten the odds, but the reality
is that two private individuals can’t run an F1
team. You’ve seen since then how great teams
such as Williams and McLaren have fallen by the
wayside. Unlessyou’ve got the backing of a big
entity you’ve got no chance.”