COOPER: Niki Lauda And The Brawn/Lowe Saga At Mercedes

Formula 1

COOPER: Niki Lauda And The Brawn/Lowe Saga At Mercedes

Ross Brawn remains in charge of sporting, technical and racing matters at Mercedes...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted January 25, 2013 Balen (BEL)

Ross Brawn is still running the show at Mercedes. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The prospect of Ross Brawn being eased out of a team in a coup is an extraordinary one, given that along with Adrian Newey, he is one of the two towering figures of the sport over the last two decades.

And yet, that’s what appeared to be happening this week at Mercedes GP, with Niki Lauda painted as the culprit. After Brawn talked to the media on Thursday, things have calmed down a little, but it’s apparent that the situation is still fluid.

To re-cap, Lauda was first linked to Mercedes in September, when it emerged that he was helping the manufacturer to convince Lewis Hamilton to come on board. He succeeded, although it was by no means his achievement alone.

Hamilton’s management had a relationship with Honda a few years ago – the infamous Earth Dreams scheme resulted from it – so there was an established channel of communication with Brackley, and discussions over 2013 had been underway for some time.

We also discovered that Lauda’s parallel role had been to help cement a Concorde Agreement deal between Mercedes and Bernie Ecclestone.

Why was a third party required to do that, you ask? Well, in essence, Bernie Ecclestone’s relationship with the Mercedes GP management was a little shaky, a situation that went back to the Brawn GP days when, for once, Bernie lost a proverbial game of poker, and Ross and company won.

Last year, negotiations with Mercedes stalled, and the team was not party to the sort of improved deals that the other major players had been able to secure. You might compare it with the situation at Williams, where – so it is said – Adam Parr left as Ecclestone was not keen to deal with him.

The Daimler board felt that, given his relationship with Ecclestone, Niki was the man for the job, and to be fair to the canny Austrian, an agreement did duly emerge. Whether it was the best deal for Mercedes or the best deal for Bernie is not something we’re in a position to judge.

It was an important development however, as it ensured that Mercedes had a secure future as a team owner, something that was far from certain at one stage last year. The retirement of Michael Schumacher and arrival of Hamilton as the future of the team was all tied up in it as well.

It then emerged that Lauda was not just doing a couple of odd jobs for his friends at Mercedes, for on Oct. 17 he was appointed as the chairman of the board of the F1 team – a body that, as of April 11, 2011, does not actually include team principal Ross Brawn.

Now that he had a formal position, it was clear that he would not waste any time making his opinions known. What was less clear was exactly how his new role dovetailed with those of Norbert Haug and Brawn.

Lauda is a supremely intelligent man and great at getting to the heart of the matter, and he’s done some amazing things in the tough world of the airline business. He can also be like a bull in a china shop, and is not noted for subtlety. He says what he thinks in an era of ‘no comments’ and downright lies from important people. Of course, that doesn’t always favor the company you work for. At the end of last season, Brawn was surprised to hear information about the team’s activities come back to him via folk in the paddock.

The chain of command was simplified when Haug left Mercedes just before Christmas, after more than 20 years with the company. Then it was made a little more complex again this week when, after the news broke first in the German media, Toto Wolff was announced as the new executive director of the F1 team, and overall boss of Mercedes motor sport.

In effect, Wolff replaces Haug, but it’s not like for like because whereas Haug was just an employee, albeit an important one, Wolff owns a share of DTM/F3 outfit HWA, and now of the F1 team itself. That means he can’t be thought of as a direct replacement. It’s unusual in that he’s representing the interests of Mercedes while owning a share of two companies that are partners of the manufacturer, but one presumes that the Daimler board are happy that there are no conflicts in that arrangement.

Wolff own 30 percent of the F1 team, and Lauda has 10 percent – the rest still belongs to Daimler. It’s hard to imagine that Lauda paid cash for his share, but it’s worth noting that the 40 percent he splits with Wolff was previously in the hands of Aabar, the Abu Dhabi investment company whose cap Lauda has been wearing of late. And his cap has been Niki’s greatest single asset since 1976.

News of Wolff’s appointment was followed swiftly by suggestions that Paddy Lowe was on his way to Mercedes, and then that Brawn would be leaving as part of a revamp. Committed to a teleconference with British journalists soon after the news broke, Wolff somewhat unconvincingly told us that he "had read it in the paper" when asked about Lowe.

Whether Wolff or Lauda was the main protagonist is not clear, but we now know that Lowe has indeed been offered a job at Mercedes. And if it seemed strange that Paddy would go to a team that already had a number of veteran technical directors drawn from up and down the F1 paddock, that’s because the job he was offered is basically the Ross Brawn role.

Given that he’s been at McLaren for 20 years, it’s not surprising that Paddy is open to a new challenge, and one that is a potentially lot more lucrative than the technical director post he holds at McLaren. The problem was that it all became public a little prematurely, while it was still just an idea.

His employers were not too impressed when they heard the news, having already lost Hamilton to the team they helped to rescue in the winter of 2008-9. Lowe, a modest individual and a team player who has given his all to McLaren for two decades, must be mortified by what has transpired.

Naturally, since Monday Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh have pulled out all the stops to ensure that Lowe does not leave, as they did with Adrian Newey and Jaguar some years ago – the difference being that Adrian had more concrete commitment to Jaguar than Lowe apparently does to Mercedes. Newey ultimately changed his mind, of course.

It’s apparent that the initial approach to Lowe was made without Ross’ knowledge, although the team boss put on a brave face yesterday when he discussed the matter, and had a logical explanation for what’s happening. Mercedes simply needed a Plan B.

“I know the situation completely,” he said in a meeting with the British media. “Mercedes want a long term commitment. Obviously with a lot of additions [to the management], I want to see how things go before I make a final long-term commitment.

“We have to have things in place. ... It’s rather like my succession plan at Ferrari. When I decided I was going to stop at Ferrari, we’d built a succession plan, and I’ve been part of that. I’ve talked to Paddy; we know the situation. ... I’m planning on being here a very long time.”

To a different group of UK newspaper journalists he added: “Paddy’s not coming, no. If I choose to leave the team, then Paddy will come. We have a fallback plan. It’s as simple as that.”

He also made it clear that Wolff’s arrival is by no means a threat to his authority. Toto’s expertise is in matters financial, and that suits Brawn. It doesn’t impact his role as the man at the sharp end of the race team.

“I am the team principal, I am in charge of sporting and technical and racing matters," Brawn said. "Of course, Toto’s coming in and there’s another side of the business that, quite frankly, I don’t want to get involved in.

“I don’t want to get involved in commercial activities on a day-to-day basis; I don’t want to get involved with the support we need to give Daimler in a day-to-day basis. There’s a lot of things which Toto will be doing which are complimentary to what I’m doing in terms of running the team.

“But you have to have one reference. Everybody knows that the only way a racing team will work is to have one reference. And I’m that reference.”

Despite that message, what is still unclear is exactly how Lauda fits in to the scheme of things. Officially, he is chairman of the board, and the power of that body obviously varies from team to team.

Intriguingly, according to the official paperwork in the public domain, the Mercedes GP board currently contains just two members – Lauda and road car R&D chief Tomas Weber, who came in with Haug et al in December 2009.

At that stage, the board had six members, and since then there’s been a revolving door of people coming and going, legal and financial boffins, many of them with Aabar connections. Now there are just the two members, an unusual state of affairs for a company with a turnover in the $200m range.

Presumably, the paperwork relating to Wolff’s appointment is in the mail, but for the moment officially – publicly – the board is just Lauda and Weber. At least the tea and biscuit bill for their meetings must be modest. And the voting process fairly straightforward.

Brawn made it clear that the Lowe saga, and the suggestions that Ross was on his way out, had created some instability. The fuss certainly confused Hamilton, who obviously saw Ross as one of the main reasons to join Mercedes.

“I think it’s disappointing that it got into the media, because it can be disturbing for the team,” said Brawn. “That’s the disappointment. I want our guys focused completely on doing the best job they can for this coming season.

“It’s a really exciting time here. Lewis is now spending some time here at the factory, there’s a huge buzz about the place, about the coming season, and that’s what we want to maintain.”

Indeed, that’s the sad thing – a resurgent Mercedes with Hamilton on board should be a very positive story for F1.

Brawn made it clear that he is excited by prospects for this season, with Hamilton coming on board and the ‘dream team’ of technical gurus creating what he hopes will be a competitive car.

“I know all the plans for the future of the team, and I hope I’m going to be a part of them for a very long time," Brawn said. "I think we’re entering a very exciting period. Obviously, Lewis joining is a massive catalyst for us all, a massive incentive and motivation.

“But I think I’m seeing the maturity of the changes that we made 12 months ago. This car has been project led by Aldo [Costa], and he’s done a fantastic job, so I’m really excited by that. Like any of us in life, if we are excited by what we do, we carry on doing it, so that’s what I want to do.”

The bottom line is that – with the possible exception of Lauda’s contribution to headhunting Hamilton – everything that affects performance at Brackley is in place because of Ross Brawn, albeit achieved with the financial and political support of Haug over the last few years. If the team does make the expected step this year, it would be somewhat unfair if the board chairman gets the credit.

“The car is coming together well, we set some tough tasks over the winter and we’re meeting them,” explains Ross. “A lot of things are behind us now. We did the restructuring of the wind tunnel, and a lot of things are behind us where this coming year we’re going to gain the benefits of those initiatives and investments we’ve made.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED