That management team, which saved the Brackley outfit from closure in 2009, operated as Brawn GP that year and then sold a controlling interest in the team to Mercedes, will remain on board but without holding equity.

Brawn: In the money (Photo: Mercedes)

Dr Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG, said that this move by Daimler shows how serious they are about succeeding in F1, despite the fact that most other manufacturers in the last two years have gone in the opposite direction; either pulling out completely like Honda, Toyota and BMW or scaling down to having merely a presence as a supplier, in the case of Renault. Incidentally there is another interesting announcement due in the next 24 hours regarding a Renault backed deal for Red Bull with Infiniti – the Renault/Nissan luxury brand. There are various theories at large about the nature of the tie-up, but all will become clear shortly.

Daimler will hold 60% of the stock with Aabar the rest. With Mubadala having been requested to sell its stake in Ferrari back to the company at the end of last year, Aabar’s stake in Mercedes represents the main interest of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds in Formula 1 teams.

Operationally the team will still operate out of Brackley with engines coming from Brixworth, near Northampton. Brawn remains as team principal in charge of all technical operations, but will no longer sit on the board, which will have three Daimler representatives and two from Aabar.

Brawn reports to Norbert Haug as head of Mercedes motorsport, who in turn reports to Zetsche. But I checked with Mercedes and on all decisions on the technical side Brawn has final say. He had spread himself a bit thin last season, trying to cover too many areas and so recently hired former Renault man Bob Bell as technical director to take a lot of the load off him. This should result in a stronger management structure.

Zetsche said: “The acquisition of a majority stake holding in our Silver Arrows team sends a clear signal that we intend to achieve technical and sporting success on world motorsport’s biggest and most important stage – and to do so in cost-effective conditions,” he said.

For all the complaints from union leaders in Germany about the company splashing the cash at a time of global cutbacks, withougt doubt the attraction to Mercedes is that they are going racing at a time when the Resource Restriction Agreement means that costs are under control and a well run, well sponsored team such as Mercedes, can even run at a profit. Mercedes has some of the strongest partners in the sport, so sponsor revenue is high.

They also have a solid customer base for engines, which is a profit centre.

As for Ross Brawn, he made the point that he plans to stick around for a few years yet, “Daimler and Aabar’s acquisition of the remaining 24.9 per cent stake in Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix will be a further step in the consolidation and strengthening of our team for the future, ” he said. “I remain fully committed to our team for the long-term, along with the management team and all of our employees. We all look forward to the challenge of making our team successful, and proudly representing Mercedes-Benz and the racing tradition of the Silver Arrows.”

Mercedes has had a tricky start to its second iteration in F1 (the first was in the 1950s). Last season the car suffered from lack of investment, resource and focus during the design phase of 2009, while this year’s car has not been very quick in testing. There are some cooling issues on the car, but it would be a mistake to judge them before we see the full package at Melbourne as they always planned to test a fairly basic car and then bring an update kit before the first race with refinements, especially in aerodynamics.

That said they will be coming from quite a long way behind when they bolt on the update pack next week for the final test in Barcelona. The cancellation of the Bahrain test and race will have bought them an extra week, but it will also have given the competition an opportunity to refine their cars too. Based on what we’ve seen so far, Mercedes has a good 7/10ths of a second a lap to make up to its rivals, possibly more.

Mercedes GP Team, 0 wins, 3 podiums, 0 poles – 4th in Constructors’ Championship

I remember saying towards the end of the 2009 season, when the Brawn team was fending off McLaren and Red Bull for the championship, that in 2010 they would be the fourth place team and so it proved. It was a combination of limited resources and having to divert much of them to winning the 2009 title at the expense of the 2010 car.

The cutbacks in what was Honda during the early part of 2009 and then when Mercedes took over at the end of the year meant that the team was well set up for the Resource Restriction Agreement. They had taken the pain early, rather than follow a glidepath downwards in staff numbers, as the other top teams are now doing. This should mean Mercedes could have their moment soon. But the price they paid for that was the car was not great, well adrift of Red Bull pace and about 3-4 tenths off the McLaren as a rule.

And it stayed not great, as Ross Brawn took the decision to stop developing the car mid season. Ironically it still went faster in the closing stages of the season, but that was largely because they were learning more about how to set it up.

But it was clear that Renault’s challenge to their fourth place in the Constructor’s Championship would be limited by having Petrov in one of the cars, so Mercedes was always likely to be able to keep its nose ahead.

It was always going to be a tough task to match the 2009 double championship winning performance, but Brawn, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher will still have hoped to challenge for podiums and race wins. Mercedes’ management will have hoped for more too as it was a pretty bold move to zig when all the other manufacturers were zagging – to pile in and buy your own team as most manufacturers were pulling out or downsizing to engine suppliers.

Brawn was open about the mistakes made in the design of the car when speaking at the end of the season. He laid the blame on the downsizing of the team numbers, the conservative approach that came from the group of engineers tasked with designing the car as a result and in particular the rear end of the car, which wasn’t state of the art aerodynamically.

Right from winter testing we were hearing from rival team engineers that the car had some weight distribution problems too. So there were echoes of the awkwardness on the design side of the car, which we used to see when the team was Honda and which were so radically different on that amazing 2009 car, which became the Brawn.

The upshot was, Silver Arrows became only the 15th team to follow up a championship winning season with a winless one while Schumacher suffered the first win-free season of his career. After three years on the sidelines, Schuey really struggled to recreate the form which saw him win 91 races as he struggled with the tyres. On a positive note, he showed some of his old self towards the end of the season and Rosberg had a far less comfortable time of it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of his actions, his move to put Barrichello into the pit wall in Hungary showed that he still means business. The worrying thing for him will be that driving around car imbalance problems was always part of his gift and he didn’t show that this year. Maybe now he’s fully match fit and with a new car fitted with Pirelli tyres, which sound like they should suit give him the firm corner turn-in he wants, he should be able to get some results.

Rosberg had a fantastic year, outdrove his more illustrious teammate, securing the team’s three podiums in Malaysia, China and Great Britain and usually managed to finish the races ahead of where he qualified. I saw him mature as a driver and as a person in 2010 and I’ll be watching him very closely in 2011 if he gets a car that can challenge. Does he have what it takes to do what Vettel has done this year and go out and dominate weekends?

I really feel the pressure is on Mercedes for 2011. Yes the global car market is improving and for companies like Mercedes the emerging markets – Brazil, India, China etc hold huge potential and yes there are few better marketing platforms than F1 for a brand like Mercedes. But the top brass will want to see some results this year. I also think Ross Brawn, having done so much over the years will surely start thinking soon about a life less pressured. I’m not sure how much he’s enjoying working with the Mercedes people and imagine he will be thinking about his succession plan soon. I’m very interested to see whom he lines up.

All photos; Darren Heath

He also tips Fernando Alonso to win the world championship this year, reiterating the admiration he has for the Spaniard, whom he tried hard to sign for Honda in late 2008.

Brawn: Going for it in 2011 (Darren Heath)

The difficulties of this season should provide that going into 2011, but it is interesting that he’s already started talking about an exit. He may stay with Mercedes for five or ten more years, but he’s saying that he won’t take on another project after this. What more is there to achieve when you’ve done what he’s done?

As a general rule, manufacturers running their own teams have been lacking in success; BMW, Toyota, Honda all failed to challenge. Renault won the title in 2005 and 2006, but since then it’s been Ferrari, McLaren in partnership with Mercedes and the new generation of customer teams like Brawn and Red Bull.

Mercedes have staked quite a bit reputationally on this project and after a difficult first season, they need to show that this model is workable. They need some strong results next year or the tensions will rise internally within Mercedes.

As always in racing, managing expectations is crucial and I got the sense that expectations were managed with the Mercedes board going into this project, given the resource restrictions the team was operating under in 2009, but still the actual performance has been a disappointment.

Brawn repeats the mantra that the forced downsizing of the team as it went from Honda to Brawn in early 2009 led to an under-resourced design team and a conservative, unambitious 2010 car. For 2011, with the support of Mercedes he says, “We have a group of young engineers who want to show their value and we will go back to being ambitious.”

He says that the main thing the team gets from Mercedes parent company Daimler is not people but resources; especially in CFD support, simulator and vehicle dynamics.

As for Michael Schumacher, Brawn affirms that he is 100% certain that the German will continue to race for Mercedes in 2011 and says “I expect that in 2011 he will come back much stronger.”

Interestingly Brawn says that he has been surprised by the performance of Nico Rosberg, who has turned out to be “far stronger than I imagined. He has had an exceptional year.” I hear that there will be some changes next year with regard to Rosberg’s race engineering team at the track.

The 33 year old German has been a rather forlorn looking reserve driver for Mercedes this season. With no on track testing allowed during the season, his role has been largely on the simulator and behind the scenes at the factory and the race track.

The Pirelli opportunity involves him driving the 2009 Toyota car, not the car which was designed and built for 2010 but never raced after the Japanese giant pulled out. The test programme, due to start straight away, will be extensive and will help Pirelli develop casings and a set of four tyre compounds for its return to the sport in 2011. After an absence of almost 20 years, the company plans to take a conservative approach and Heidfeld’s experience will come in very useful in finding the right compounds.

Toyota are running the car, with mechanics and engineers still employed at the old factory in Cologne. In total there will be 18 Toyota staff at the test in Mugello, where the car is running white and without logos. Toyota engineers are under contractual obligation not to share any Bridgestone technical data with the Pirelli engineers.

“We have a policy of complete impartiality, so we did not want to favour any existing team,” said Pirelli competition boss Paul Hembery. “The Toyota was the perfect solution, as it is a contemporary racing machine with proven speed and reliability but without links to any of the manufacturers currently competing in Formula One.”

As we have seen this year with Michael Schumacher’s problems at Mercedes, understanding how to get the best from the tyres is a vital part of being fast and this will be especially true on what will otherwise be a level playing field with unknown tyres next season.

That said, Heidfeld struggled with front tyre warm up in his BMW Sauber days, compared with Robert Kubica so his style of driving, gentle on the tyres, will need to be taken into account by the Pirelli engineers.

Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug said, “It would be great to see Nick in a competitive
car in next year’s Formula One World Championship and I am sure his leading role in the new tyre development, in addition to his skills, puts Nick in a good position for the remaining seats in 2011.”

Heidfeld was a Mercedes young driver and thought he was on a fast track to a McLaren seat in the early 2000s, but Mercedes and McLaren took Kimi Raikkonen instead. Heidfeld then went to BMW, but came back to Mercedes in the reserve driver role this year. It will be interesting to see whether one of the Mercedes engined teams takes him next year or whether another forward thinking team decides to give him a run.

Sauber ran him during two separate stints and in the most recent one were not pleased when he suddenly speeded up by four tenths of a second per lap when the replaced Jacques Villeneuve with Robert Kubica in 2006. Peter Sauber felt that he should have been putting everything on the table all the time.

But if testing remains very limited next season, then having Heidfeld’s experience, even for one season, would be vastly preferable to running a rookie, so you may see him get a second chance.

He’s strong on engineering and his performances alongside Kubica showed that if the car is set up to his liking he can be very fast. The problem was that he and Kubica wanted quite different things from a car.

“The team has always said that they would not stand in my way if such a chance arose and they have kindly allowed me to take up this exciting new role,” said Heidfeld.

Pirelli has also taken the smart move of hiring the hugely experienced Peter Grzelinski and James Gresham to manage the tyre logistics. They have been responsible for this role with Bridgestone throughout their time in F1, stretching back to 1997 and have forgotten more about moving tyres around the world and getting them serviced properly at race tracks than most people have ever learned.

Mercedes has released Heidfeld from his contract and say they will not rush to appoint a new reserve driver. But they will need someone to cover them in Spa in two weeks. Perhaps Mercedes DTM driver Paul di Resta, who is contracted to Force India and has recent F1 experience, can be on standby, otherwise they may go with someone like Jamie Green, who is also a front line star in DTM and who has long deserved a chance in F1.

But I guess with Mercedes being an all German team, they may also be thinking of a German reserve driver.

Mercedes Benz is buying 75.1% of the Brawn team. Mercedes CEO Dr Dieter Zetsche and Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug announced this morning that the team will be rebranded as the Mercedes team from next season onwards and the colour scheme will change to the Silver Arrows livery.

The move allows Mercedes to have its own brand to the fore, rather than subservient to the McLaren brand, for a fraction of the cost of what they have spent in the past on F1, thanks to the resource restriction agreement and greater commercial revenues.

The move is a massive vote of confidence in Ross Brawn personally. Mercedes might have expected to win more during its time with McLaren and the fact that they didn’t is largely due to Brawn’s management of the Ferrari technical team and of Michael Schumacher.

Brawn had nothing left to prove after winning the championship this year with his own team, but here Mercedes are investing in him and he has committed to stay with the team for an undisclosed period, in addition to retaining a shareholding. By rough estimates, presuming that he held a majority stake in Brawn GP, he must have personally made around £30 million this year from taking on the team from Honda for £1 and then reselling it nine months later.

McLaren’s Ron Dennis responded with a statement saying that the deal was a “win-win” for both companies and that his team would continue to be called Vodafone McLaren Mercedes and would retain its silver and red livery. Mercedes will continue to supply engines to McLaren until 2015.

Dr Zetsche said that the reason for the move away from McLaren was that the two companies were not aligned on road car projects, with McLaren pushing forwards with a new sportscar, the MP4/12C which is a direct competitor to Mercedes supercar programme. He refused to be drawn on what effect the spy scandal of 2007 and this years lying scandal had on their decision.

Although this move has been foreshadowed for some time, the execution is subtly different from what has been rumoured. First the Abu Dhabi investment company Aabar is taking a 30% shareholding in the team, with Mercedes taking 45.1% and Brawn directors keeping the remaining 24.9%. It had been speculated that Aabar would hold the entire 75% until the end of 2011 when the contract with McLaren was due to expire. By giving away certain rights, McLaren and Mercedes have arrived at a compromise which works for both parties and allows Mercedes brand to be at the forefront of its

Dr Zetsche said, “Our relationship with McLaren was affected in recent years by the fact that the other shareholders were interested in building up a new automotive company building sports cars and supersports cars. That was not in the interests of Daimler and Mercedes Benz and because of this lack of alignment we were discussing to withdraw and McLaren group agreed to purchase 40% shares from Daimler within the next three years.”

“We can now rearrange our F1 activities with the consequence that we will reduce our F1 budget to about a quarter of what it used to be. We want to accomplish that in the next two years. The reason for that is the resource restrictions agreement between the teams and the FIA, greater revenues from the commercial rights and greater revenues from partnerships and sponsorships as the Silver Arrows works team. We are acquiring 75% of a team which has been very well funded to begin with.”

Mercedes is very cannily taking over a team which is perfectly suited to the F1 business model of the future, which has been built up with BAT’s massive investment in the 1990s and Honda’s money in the 2000s. Literally billions have been spent on this team and Mercedes is picking it up for a fraction of what it would have cost if they had decided to ‘do a Toyota’ and build their own team up from scratch.

Logistically it makes perfect sense too, Mercedes Benz High Performance Engines facility is based in Northampton, 20 miles away down the A43 from Brawn’s Brackley base. They are either side of the M1 motorway.

As for drivers, Jenson Button and his management have made a big play of wanting to be ‘valued’ but they may have got their timing and tactics wrong. They have tried to back Brawn into a corner. But I cannot help but feel that Button should have taken the deal on offer and signed a contract this Autumn and just got on with it. Brawn’s team is clearly the place to be and to risk losing everything for the sake of a few million quid when you have fought for your whole career to be in the right car, seems counterintuitive.

Button will have known about this takeover for some time and Mercedes will have been involved in the background of the decision making process. Where they are in the negotiation reflects how they value him. The deal is still on the table for Button and I get the impression that Brawn would still like him to drive alongside Nico Rosberg. Some commentators see it that Mercedes has pushed Button out and that he is going to McLaren as a result. I’ll post on this in more depth later.

Four drivers are in play here; Button. Rosberg, Raikkonen and Heidfeld. There are three seats available. Although Rosberg is the German driver sitting in the Mercedes car for the next few years, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Sebastian Vettel is the driver Mercedes want long term and he will become available in 2012. You have to wonder about Mercedes’ plans for Lewis Hamilton too. His contract with McLaren is for five years from 2008, but I can imagine that Mercedes and Hamilton would be factoring each other into their plans for the future.

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