Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2013

[FoxHound]

Lowe is technical. He doesn't deal in politics and negotiation.

He will certainly involved in looking at next years car and perhaps some pointers to assist in Mercedes tyre woes.
Wolff is the boss, as mandated by Zetsche who wielded the axe on Haug. Brawn directs with Wolff looking on with a rather sharp axe himself.
My guess is that if the tyre issues persist for the season, Brawn rightly or wrongly will be axed. If there is a solution to be found, Brawn may have a stay of execution. I just don't see it being turned round quickly enough for him, despite the evident speed of the W04.

Lowe has experience of harmonising design by committee. And if anyone wants to point to it as the wrong way to go, Ferrari are doing pretty well with a host of big names on their roster.
Pat Fry, Nick Tombazis, Loic Bigois(yes, a Mercedes caste off), Simone Resta and of course talking of retired greats...Rory Byrne added to the list!! This ontop of a James Allison already strongly rumoured to be going to Maranello.

As for win at all costs, it's Mercedes. Their recruitment drive started when it became clear the RRA was not fit for purpose. So they could sulk and spend a 100 million a year, or they could crack on and try push the team forward.
This isn't madness. It makes sense especially as Mercedes have also beefed up their political punch with Ecclestone allies to cut a better commercial deal.
What is bizarre is that some people would level the venture as madness, completely forgetting the circumstances of Mercedes coming into F1 as official team owners at the end of 2009. Political upheavel...RRA, budget caps and so on and so forth.

@Shakeman
No it's apparently Ferrari. To add to their list which is probably as "mad" as Mercedes according to a "knowledgeable" poster.

[Mika1]

MGP has gone completely mad with their hiring strategy -you can only say it serves to weaken the competitors ,as it seems completely unplausible you need this much head heavyness to build a racecar with 500 employees.

Who is still out there ? Newey ,FRY,Key,Oatley,Coughlan,Symmonds,Marshall and Smith -maybe Gascoyne...if you resist not to resort to retired greats ...

Compare to the array at MGP :Brawn,Bell,Costa,Willis,Lowe,Allison,have I forgotten someone?..

This was already on the verge of being bizarre considering the original plot was the logic to buy a already shrinked down lean f1 outfit ready for the future...it now looks more like win at all costs

one could argue that knowledge in depth maybe good in MGP but you need senior leaders to tell good from bad directions early on and avoid the lower workforce doing their own thing basically instead of pulling at one rope...The current organigramme does not really cry one direction either but who knows .
My personal view is they have not really been strong in building their team over the years .Against the speech we hear the problems basically have remained as is -tyre use and understanding,strategy and avoiding mistakes eg reliability.
just think of how differently things would have gone without all those silly things going on .

Ross Brawn disagrees, he said you can't have enough TDs with the 2014 rule changes.

[mantikos]

Here are two posts shamelessly copied from the Autosport forums that explain well I think what the TD actually is responsible for. Given McLaren's current, post-Newey organization, I suspect Lowe is much like the Bob Bell type of TD, if not more so. Apologies to the author for swiping his posts...

On Bob Bell and James Allison...

I worked at Enstone from 2006 to the beginning of 2008. At that time James Allison was deputy technical director. His job was basically to help Bob Bell do his tasks.

A 'technical director' in the Bob Bell/Allison mould rarely designs anything. They don't sit in front of a CATIA or Star/CD designing gearboxes or rear wing profiles. The design of the car in those years was supervised by Tim Densham. The aerodynamics of the car was supervised by Dino Toso. The actual design of the car is carried out be junior and senior engineers and its up to the management to decide the which design choices to select and put the whole thing together.

A good way to think of Bob Bell is he's essentially a technical 'buyer'. He has a pocket full of money and his job is to 'make the car go fast'. It's up to him to choose where to allocate these resources. The senior engineering staff will all tell him 'give me $$$'s and I'll get you x seconds a lap'. He has to decide where he thinks the best 'value' for his $$$ is and pursue these avenues of research and development. Of course to do this job you need to have a very good grasp of physics, a good engineering mind, a lot of knowledge and experience in race car performance and you need to be a good listener to get all the information and feedback from your junior staff.

On Newey...

But their role within their company is completely different. My old boss at Ford Australia worked at the McLaren aerodynamics department for five years and got to quite a high level. So he had a good knowledge of how Adrian works.

Adrian is primarily a aerodynamic designer. He still keeps a drawing board in his office and still draws ('schemes') to be sent off to the design office for fabrication. He is still intricately involved in very small aerodynamic details. He still sets at the head of the aerodynamic department and reviews all the CFD data and regular team meetings to not only make management decisions (i.e. which development avenues are a good idea) but also to give himself more input for his own ideas.

It's Adrian's own skill and insight as an aerodynamicist, combined with his experience and knowledge of race car performance, vehicle dynamics, physics etc. that makes him such a formidable package.

Adrian' role of technical director would probably resemble something along the lines of going to the team principal and saying 'give me all your money and I'll make the car go faster'

The structure as explained on earlier pages is this:

Bob Bell type folks are looking at current development, Costa and Willis type folks do the R&D 1-2 years in advance and feed the basic ideas to the team that says yay or nay to their R&D ideas and further develop them. Although Bell is currently working on the engine side of things.

[marcush.]

Here are two posts shamelessly copied from the Autosport forums that explain well I think what the TD actually is responsible for. Given McLaren's current, post-Newey organization, I suspect Lowe is much like the Bob Bell type of TD, if not more so. Apologies to the author for swiping his posts...

On Bob Bell and James Allison...

I worked at Enstone from 2006 to the beginning of 2008. At that time James Allison was deputy technical director. His job was basically to help Bob Bell do his tasks.

A 'technical director' in the Bob Bell/Allison mould rarely designs anything. They don't sit in front of a CATIA or Star/CD designing gearboxes or rear wing profiles. The design of the car in those years was supervised by Tim Densham. The aerodynamics of the car was supervised by Dino Toso. The actual design of the car is carried out be junior and senior engineers and its up to the management to decide the which design choices to select and put the whole thing together.

A good way to think of Bob Bell is he's essentially a technical 'buyer'. He has a pocket full of money and his job is to 'make the car go fast'. It's up to him to choose where to allocate these resources. The senior engineering staff will all tell him 'give me $$$'s and I'll get you x seconds a lap'. He has to decide where he thinks the best 'value' for his $$$ is and pursue these avenues of research and development. Of course to do this job you need to have a very good grasp of physics, a good engineering mind, a lot of knowledge and experience in race car performance and you need to be a good listener to get all the information and feedback from your junior staff.

On Newey...

But their role within their company is completely different. My old boss at Ford Australia worked at the McLaren aerodynamics department for five years and got to quite a high level. So he had a good knowledge of how Adrian works.

Adrian is primarily a aerodynamic designer. He still keeps a drawing board in his office and still draws ('schemes') to be sent off to the design office for fabrication. He is still intricately involved in very small aerodynamic details. He still sets at the head of the aerodynamic department and reviews all the CFD data and regular team meetings to not only make management decisions (i.e. which development avenues are a good idea) but also to give himself more input for his own ideas.

It's Adrian's own skill and insight as an aerodynamicist, combined with his experience and knowledge of race car performance, vehicle dynamics, physics etc. that makes him such a formidable package.

Adrian' role of technical director would probably resemble something along the lines of going to the team principal and saying 'give me all your money and I'll make the car go faster'

i think this is a fair description of the current state of affairs when it comes to TDs and very contrary to Newey who is a designer ,not a TD in my book.

But this lifts the question just how many deciders you need to channel your recources into the right direction? Isn´t it possible that more than one brilliant ways to do things exist? So a commitee of say 4,5 chaps wrestling for consensus
is all a compromise but could well be not a win win situation .would it lead to taking risks or more like sitting on the fence and pointing at those who are identified as underperformers? To me this approach looks slow and slowing itself down with time -the typical industry -automotive approach.Never the best playing it safe.

[mantikos]

i think this is a fair description of the current state of affairs when it comes to TDs and very contrary to Newey who is a designer ,not a TD in my book.

But this lifts the question just how many deciders you need to channel your recources into the right direction? Isn´t it possible that more than one brilliant ways to do things exist? So a commitee of say 4,5 chaps wrestling for consensus
is all a compromise but could well be not a win win situation .would it lead to taking risks or more like sitting on the fence and pointing at those who are identified as underperformers? To me this approach looks slow and slowing itself down with time -the typical industry -automotive approach.Never the best playing it safe.

They don't all work on the same thing

[turbof1]

Of course they will not, but with so many of them, there are bound to be many overlapping functions.

[Pup]

Well, it's just a bizarre situation. You've got Bell, who's a championship-winning TD, under Brawn, who's a championship-winning TD, TP, and Team Owner, who I guess is now under Lowe, who's not a championship-winning anything. Not that I'm saying he's not a smart, talented guy or that they don't know what they're doing - it's just, a bit bizarre.

[turbof1]

I've seen many similar situations before. Companies who want to grow or expand and want to do so by attracting know-how and expertise, so they end up mass-recruiting specialists in the field and put them together. However, it almost always ended with a fight for control because their jobs weren't clearly differentiated from eachother. In the end most of them always leave the company, and the company itself is left with a net loss. Classic mistake; putting geniuses together isn't the best approach. What you need to have is a solid company structure and a good team at the head working closely together, with rigoriously bordered-off responsibilities and duties for each individual, and of course the members of that team need be ready to make sacrifices for the collective. Not every big name in F1 is ready to do so.

[Pierce89]

And built the almighty mp4-27 the year afterwards. So yes he can built championship winning cars (which he hopes will actually win championships at mercedes instead of the team screwing it up).

Who said he couldn't build a chamionship winner? I only said he hasn't. I was correcting a post so no one got misinformed.

[Neno]

And built the almighty mp4-27 the year afterwards. So yes he can built championship winning cars (which he hopes will actually win championships at mercedes instead of the team screwing it up).

Who said he couldn't build a chamionship winner? I only said he hasn't. I was correcting a post so no one got misinformed.

He didnt build anything, Mclaren's engineer build it. He was for god sake tehnical director, he "only" maked decision on which path they will go, how much money and time they will spend on product they made. But now Mercedes have at least 10 people who can do the same, one will say this, one will say that, third will say both, fourth will say plan for next year, fifth will say make sure we plan for 2 years ahead, six will say, i must agreee with fifth and first, sevent will say i must agree with fourth and second.... it's a mess. But i am glad Mercedes following Pokemon logic: You must catch them all (TD's).

[marcush.]

i think this is a fair description of the current state of affairs when it comes to TDs and very contrary to Newey who is a designer ,not a TD in my book.

But this lifts the question just how many deciders you need to channel your recources into the right direction? Isn´t it possible that more than one brilliant ways to do things exist? So a commitee of say 4,5 chaps wrestling for consensus
is all a compromise but could well be not a win win situation .would it lead to taking risks or more like sitting on the fence and pointing at those who are identified as underperformers? To me this approach looks slow and slowing itself down with time -the typical industry -automotive approach.Never the best playing it safe.

They don't all work on the same thing

How true -and that´s maybe the big problem!

At the end you need a car driver team combo workin harmony ......having 10 master cooks may or may not lead to a masterful dinner even if the separate creations may well be top notch or at least competent ...

[astracrazy]

Well, it's just a bizarre situation. You've got Bell, who's a championship-winning TD, under Brawn, who's a championship-winning TD, TP, and Team Owner, who I guess is now under Lowe, who's not a championship-winning anything. Not that I'm saying he's not a smart, talented guy or that they don't know what they're doing - it's just, a bit bizarre.

I don't think its quiet like that imo. i think people over complicate this hierarchy structure

I think yes Bell, Willis and Costa are under Lowe because that's the developing side. Each have there own separate rolls (engine, suspension etc)

I think Brawn is separate from that strand as his job is running the team (more of a sporting roll), i don't think he'll have any development input at all anymore. He will prob be lower than Lowe in the company but won't answer to Lowe because his roll is completely different. He will answer to Toto.

Same way as i'd say Brawn is higher than Bell etc but they won't answer to him

I might be wrong but that's how i currently see it.

[marcush.]

we went through this ages ago.
There is interviews around of Brawn stating who is reporting to whom and who does what.
Clearly Bell is designated Technical director orchestrating it all .End of story - Costa is more in a design directors role -which is logically bound to be the car of next year then.And willis does manage the Aero Research to evaluate possible directions
all them report to Bell ...and those under the relevant directors -lead designers ,aerodynmicist (like elliott) report to their respective boss...quite easy .
Brawn is team principal -which is non technological and maybe not even management really- the king ,more or less .
So where does Lowe meet in with this is rather a big question unless one thinks the board needs a independend observer who has the knowledge ,current knowledge- to understand if the concepts and schedules are sound and success likely ...which could really be a good idea ... nearly unlimited recources a given.

[Pup]

Perhaps not the board, but Toto. What else is he going to do? I mean, my assumption is that Toto had essentially hired Lowe for Williams, and then when the Mercedes gig fell in his lap, quickly brought Lowe along as well, having been misinformed via Lauda and the board that the team was in need of a top to bottom shakeup. Then he got on the job and realized that it was Lauda who was full of it. So Toto ended up with an extra team principal; or one team principal and a team principal in waiting.

Maybe McLaren's largess is a white elephant. "You want an extra team principal? Here you go! Now, start paying his salary."

[FoxHound]

Lowe will bring with him IP from macca. Working methods, knowledge transfer, ideas, and problem solving expertise.

How can anyone lament this recruitment drive when it has worked wonders for Ferrari this year?