Mercedes CEO Shrugs Off Red Bull’s Staff Poaching

BEVERLY HILLS, May 09, (THEWILL) – The Formula One racing team Red Bull has continued to challenge the circuit’s leading unit Mercedes AMG F1 team on the race tracks. To become more competitive, Red Bull is taking over the Honda power unit project from next year while also ramping up its facilities in Milton Keynes to prepare an all-new power unit for all the new 2025 regulations soon to come into effect.

For all these additions, Red Bull has embarked on a huge recruitment drive for the most capable and experienced staff to constitute their required manpower. It was only expected that they were going to go shopping at Mercedes for the calibre of staff they required.

This came to the fore when it was revealed that Red Bull had already lured away several of Mercedes’ long-serving staff from its Brixworth engine headquarters where they manufacture Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains.

THEWILL reported last month that Red Bull had signed long-serving Mercedes man Ben Hodgkinson to be its new technical director of Red Bull Powertrains. Last week, the team again announced that five more Mercedes personnel were moving across to take senior positions at Red Bull.

The poaching of Mercedes staff will definitely provide fresh challenges for the F1 champions but Team Principal and CEO, Toto Wolff has come out to say that Mercedes is not worried. Instead, he believes the German car manufacturer could come out of the situation much stronger than it previously was.

Wolff stated that it was in Mercedes’ and F1’s benefit to have another power unit supplier on the grid and that it will not be as easy for Red Bull to immediately deliver optimally on making its engine due to the uphill task involved.

Specifically, Wolff said: “I find it admirable that Red Bull is taking on that project, there is certainly a Mount Everest to climb. Nothing has changed in HPP [Mercedes’ engine division]. We have 900 employees, and probably we lose 10 or 15. It’s pretty normal and mostly manufacturing staff.

“So from our side, the game plan hasn’t changed. I think it’s good that we have another possible constructor that comes into the sport, whether it’s Red Bull or any other OEM that could be interested in taking over, and that’s overall positive.

“I don’t see any negativity there, any negative aspect in the situation.”

Concerning the positives, Wolff clarified further: “It opens up bottlenecks for younger engineers to come up. They have an opportunity now, and changing the organisation has always opportunities.

“Organisations are dynamic organs and not static. 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.”