Is brain drain the real problem at Mercedes?

After some key departures, can Mercedes overcome their slow start?

The 2023 Formula 1 season for Mercedes is off to a similar start to the 2022 campaign. While last year the team was struggling with physics, aerodynamics, and porpoising, this season the issue seems to be sheer performance.

Following last week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, the mood out of the Silver Arrows’ camp seems rather downtrodden. George Russell is already wondering about next year, Lewis Hamilton is admitting that the team was “fourth fastest” in Bahrain and lamenting that the team did not listen to him when designing their 2023 challenger, and Team Principal Toto Wolff called the Bahrain Grand Prix “one of our worst days in racing.”

Certainly there is time for Mercedes to turn things around. There were even signs of progress over the last two weeks, given their improvement from a few shaky testing sessions to their finish in Bahrain. Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich stated as much after the Bahrain Grand Prix, when he told F1TV that “...if you look at them from the first day of testing, you can see they really improved. I think like last year they started really bad, but they are able to make the steps forward so I think they can make good steps forward during the season.”

The team also announced this week that “visible changes” would be coming to the W14. In a video debrief shared by the team Andrew Shovlin, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director, talked about the sidepod design on the W14 — which has been a point of contention the past two seasons — and what the team is looking to accomplish in the next few races:

But the bigger question facing the team might not be whether they can turn things around, but whether the ongoing brain drain they have faced over the past few seasons is going to hamper the process. Over the past two seasons, Mercedes has lost a number of talented individuals to rival teams, integral parts to an operation that delivered eight-straight Constructors’ Championships, and seven-straight titles for Hamilton.

One such departure? Phil Prew, who spent six years with Mercedes after starting his F1 career at McLaren. He was a race engineer for McLaren in his early days, and helped guide Hamilton to his first Drivers’ Championship in 2008, back when Hamilton was racing for McLaren. At the time he left Mercedes, Prew was the team’s chief power unit engineer.

When the Prew move was reported, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner noted that it was a sign of where the team wants to take their power units. “I’m delighted that Phil is going to be joining the team and he has a phenomenal track record. He has been a key component of Mercedes’ recent success and, again, it is another statement of intent of where we want to be with the power unit,” Horner stated at the time. “I think we have assembled great strength and depth within the business and it’s fantastic to see it really coming together and coming to life. Phil is one of a few key signings recently that add to the very talented group of people that we have already assembled.”

In the months since then, Red Bull announced an agreement with Ford to develop power units starting with the 2026 F1 season.

Prew has not yet started with Red Bull, as there is an understanding that there will be a “gardening period” before he can join the team, having come from a senior role with Mercedes.

Prew is not the only former member of Mercedes to make a move to Red Bull. Ben Hodgkinson, who started with Mercedes in 2001 and was their head of mechanical engineering, left Mercedes at the start of 2022. Under an agreement between the two teams, Hodgkinson was free to start with Red Bull in May of 2022.

The move was made with an eye towards the future, with Red Bull moving towards building their own power units in conjunction with Ford. At the time the agreement on a start date was reached, Horner spoke very highly of Hodgkinson. “We are delighted to welcome Ben to Red Bull Powertrains as Technical Director,” Horner said at the time of the agreement. “He comes to this hugely exciting project as a proven race winner and as an innovator capable of leading a like-minded team of highly skilled engineers.”

During his time with Mercedes, Hodgkinson wore a number of different hats. He started as a design engineer back in August of 2001, before spending time as a development engineer, and then a development team leader.

He took on the role of design team leader in August of 2004, and worked in that capacity until 2007. Ultimately, Hodgkinson became the team’s Head of Mechanical Engineering in September of 2017.

That well-rounded resume gives him a tremendous amount of knowledge, knowledge he is now supplying to Red Bull.

The most recent departure from Mercedes? James Vowles, who left his role as the team’s Motorsport Strategy Director to become the new Team Principal at Williams. Some in F1 circles, such as former driver Vitaly Petrov, wondered why Mercedes would let Vowles take on a new role, given what he meant to the team. “Honestly, I would never have let him go,” said Petrov at the time.

Still, Wolff maintained at the time that a succession plan was in place, and that he was confident that the team had the right people to forge ahead. “There is no gap left behind, because for many years we have discussed the succession planning in this area,” said the Mercedes Team Principal. “We have an extremely talented team of strategists. We have nine people, some very senior, that are not always on the front line, and some that have grown within the organization. They have flown the aeroplane now alone in the last six months, and before that already very much just under James’s supervision. So I feel very comfortable in the structure going forward. And it’s not that suddenly a big weakness has been created.”

And for their part, the Silver Arrows have been making moves of their own. Eagle-eyed observers noted that Jayne Poole, formerly the Chief Operating Officer with Red Bull, was wearing Mercedes colors in Bahrain. That prompted Wolff and the team to confirm that she had been hired as a special advisor to help the team internally.

And perhaps to help the team deal with the brain drain from the past few seasons.

“As an organisation, you have to always be prepared that you could lose members,” Wolff said last month. “We’ve had it many times where people stepped up and they leave an open position behind them or they join another team, and for me, it’s only proof that we are developing and working with capable people.”

Now those people will be put to the test, as Mercedes faces another challenge to refine their challenger for the 2023 season. For their sake, hopefully it is a challenge the team can solve quicker than they did a season ago.