Formula One land is at times an incestuous place to be. With seven of the teams based in England’s motorsport corridor the opportunity to move from one organisation to another and progress sees a constant ebb and flow of employees between the teams.

Much was made of the fact that Mercedes fall from grace was due to a ‘brain drain,’ something both Toto Wolff and Mercedes technical director, James Allison, have both refuted.

Speaking to F1’s Beyond the grid podcast Allison addresses the topic head on suggesting the ‘brain drain’ narrative about Mercedes in the media is in fact a propaganda effort from the team’s rivals.

 

 

 

Mercedes claim rivals talking top a ‘brain drain’

“I think it probably pays to recognise what a sort of full frontal war Formula 1 is and the war of trying to make your car competitive is fought on every front.

“So it is convenient for certain teams who have brain drains of their own to put narratives in the press about the sort of misfortunes that others might be suffering.”

Christian Honer claimed he had recruited 220 personnel from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) in Brixworth, although Toto Wolff contradicted him stating the number was in fact just “19 engineers.”

Toto agreed with Allison that the staff movement experienced at Mercedes was all part of the “natural fluctuations between teams” and “completely normal.”

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Aston Martin coup

That said, the recruitment by Aston Martin of Andy Cowell from Mercedes HPP raised some eyebrows in the paddock. Cowell is largely credited with being the mastermind which developed the Mercedes V6 turbo hybrid for 2014, a power unit that would see them dominate the sport for years

Red Bull too over the years have suffered their own loss of key individuals. Peter Prodomou, at the time Newey’s right hand man, left to join McLaren in 2014 and is one of the three specialised technical directors reporting into team boss Andreas Stella. Of course it was recently announced that trackside director Jonathan Wheatley was leaving for Audi after the summer break, he was the voice famously talking to Michael Massi during the 2021 showdown in the dessert which resulted in a last lap shootout.

Yet someone Red Bull must be surely coming to miss is Rob Marshall. He joined the newly formed Red Bull team in 2006 where he worked closely with Adrian Newey as teams chief designer. He played a key role between 2010 and 2013 as the team and Sebastian Vettel both won four consecutive F1 titles. He was promoted to chief engineering officer in 2016.

Yet in May last season it was announced that after a seventeen year spell with Red Bull F1, Marshall would be joining McLaren in January 2024 following a period of gardening leave. His role there is Chief Designer and he reports directly into team boss Andreas Stella.

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Ex-Red Bull designer ‘making the difference’ at McLaren

Marshall’s fingerprints are on the upgrades McLaren brought to Miami which saw Lando Norris win his maiden F1 race ahead of Max Verstappen. The early season specification of the car would have been finalised before Marshal had time to impact its design.

Again in Zandvoort, McLaren brought big upgrades to they MCL38 and they worked right out of the box, something Red Bull are not able to do currently.

Former F1 team boss, Otmar Szafnaeur, believes Marshall has made a significant difference since joining McLaren bringing his expertise from Red Bull has meant the team has investigated certain areas of the current regulations they previously have not exploited.

“It’s definitely possible for one person to come in and say: ‘The secret sauce at Red Bull was this, you should be looking in this direction,’” said Szafnauer on the James Allen podcast.

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Marshall impressed by McLaren facility

“When you hear things like the aero performance is unlocked through some mechanical design elements of the car – and you know what those are and how those mechanical design elements actually unlock the performance – you can point that team in that direction to start looking here.”

Marshall has been impressed by one key area since arriving at McLaren reports Greg Stuart on the F1 Nation podcast. “We’ve heard from Rob Marshall and he’s been saying what he’s been really impressed by since coming over to McLaren from Red Bull is that everything that they try out coordinates perfectly with the wind tunnel, with the simulations. So they know it’s going to work. They put it on the car and it works,” said Stuart.

This of course saves wind tunnel and CFD design time meaning more progress over the course of a season can be made inside the restrictions on aero testing as regulated by the FIA.

By way of contrast, Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache has been forced to admit the situation is not the same at Red Bull. A big upgrade package was brought to Budapest before the summer brake which didn’t work, such that the team reverted to an early season specification for the recent race in Zandvoort.

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Red Bull struggles revealed

Wache details the reasons for some of Red Bull’s struggles this season. “We are using quite an old wind tunnel and it can also be linked to the reduced capacity due to our position in the championship [with the aerodynamic testing restrictions] and maybe also the fact that this is the third year with this type of regulations.”

The F1 teams are restricted to the amount of capital spend they can make each year at around $10m dollars and Red Bull are in the process of a planning application to revamp their campus and improved the wind tunnel.

Further now in the third year of the current set of F1 car design regulations, the rate of progress for Red Bull who have been way out front of course diminishes.

Red Bull SHOCKING findings in RB20 development direction

 

 

 

FIA handicap system working

Finally, McLaren have had this year a much larger allowance than Red Bull for wind tunnel time and CFD work given they finished just fourth in the constructors’ championship at the end of 2023.

The handicap system based on championship order meant that Red Bull had just 840 hours of wind tunnel time while McLaren had a whopping 1020, 21.4% more than the world championship winning team.

With Red Bull taking the extraordinary step of reverting to an early season version of the RB20, this reveals difference between the two organisations. McLaren know where they’re going. Red Bull appear to be floundering around in the dark. 

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Jos Verstappen new attack on Horner

Max Verstappen hasn’t won a race since Barcelona some six Formula One race weekends ago and the margin by which Lando Norris defeated him in Zandvoort sent shockwaves around the paddock.

McLaren now have the quickest car and with both drivers scoring big points regularly, they are rapidly closing down Red Bull in the constructors’ title race. Yet this is not the sum total of Christian Horner’s worries as internal squabbling within the team reignites as Jos Verstappen opens fire on the Red Bull boss.

Early in the season Christian Horner was accused of “inappropriate behaviour” towards a female employee and despite all allegations being dismissed Jos Verstappen chose to publicly tear into Horner demanding he leave his role as team principal… READ MORE