34 F1 RACING JANUARY 2020
that “thecircumstancesof th e creationof the
teams was from a diff erent reference”.
“Ferrari,” he says, “wasa pretty big and
comprehensive organisationalr eady andreally
in that caseit was a question of giving the
people confidence and going from there.
“Jean had done alot of workalready, and
[chief mechanic] Nigel Stepneyand Stefano
[Domenicali, thesporti ng director].They were
good people.But it lackeda little cohesion inthe
upper management, and there was thisconflict
between the UK [design office under John
Barnard]and Italy. It’s n ot easy to design a car
in Godalming and engineer it in Maranello.”
The sol ution tothat wasto move design back
to Maranello under Brawn and Byrne and “bring
some structure”.
“Mercedes,” Brawn explains, “was a
differentsituation.”
Brawn had joined for 2008 when the
team thatis now Mercedes was Honda. But
Honda pulled out at the endof th at season.The team was reconstitutedas Br awn, withhelp
from money Honda supplied, and famously
won the championship in itsfi rst year. But
the background tothe fairytale successwith
Jenson Button in 2009 was a painfulperiod of
job losses, and the team was down to 400 staff
members bythe time Mercedes boughtBrawn
out at the endof 2009.
“There are over1,000 people now,” Brawn
says. “It took a while before Mercedes really
committed and that was partly my fault, or my
responsibility. It wasn’t until 2012 that Mercedes
really decided to bite the bullet and commit fully
to the things that needed to be done.
“The fascinating thing for meis t here were
so many peopleat Ferrari who went from
not believingthey could win championships
to winning championships, and itwas the
same with Honda.”
Brawn mentions how many of the senior
fi gures at Mercedes were with theteam long
before him –among them chief designerJohn
Owen, trackside engineering directo r Andrew
Shovlin, sporting directorRon Meadows, chief
track engineer SimonCole, chief strategist
James Vowles, and Lewis Hamilton’srace
engineer Peter Bonnington.
“A lot of itis giving people confidence and
helping people understand that they are not
that di ff erent from people whoare winning
championships,” Brawn says.
A lot, though, has changed at Mercedes since
Brawn left.In 20 13, Mercedes broughtin Paddy
Lowe alongside Wolff to be the technical sideof
an executive-director partnership, and he saw
the team throughthe fi rst t hree titles.Bob Bell,
appointed technical director byBraw n in 2011
and who was instrumental in shaping the team,
resigned in 2013and left at the endof 20 14.
Lowe left in early 2017and JamesAllison
took up therevived role of technical director
under Wolff. Aldo Costa, whomBrawn
appointed as engineering directo r to co-lead
design with Owen,chose to move out gradually
and recently left the company for good.Mercedes won 81.51% of the
pointsavailableto theteam in 2014Mercedes won 86.05% of the
pointsavailableto theteam in 2015“IT WASN’T UNTIL
2012 THAT MERCEDES
REALLY DECIDED TO
BITE THE BULLET AND
COMMIT FULLY TO THE
THINGS THAT NEEDED
TO BE DONE”
Wolff, Rosberg, Hamilton and Brawn at the
start of 2013. From here the only way was upROSSBRAWN