Ross Brawn felt betrayed by Wolff and Lauda
In a book to be published in November, former Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn looks back at the conditions of his departure from the German team. He describes the strained relations with two of the team's key executives, Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda.
Having stayed away from the circuits, British engineer Ross Brawn has turned to literature to reveal to the public the behind-the-scenes of managing the premier category of motorsport. Titled *Total Competition: Lessons in Strategy from Formula 1*, written in collaboration with Adam Parr, former director of Williams for whom Brawn was a mechanic until 1984, Brawn directly attacks Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda.
Appointed head of Mercedes GP following the acquisition of his own world champion team in 2009, Brawn recalls the start of his collaboration with his new Austrian partners: « What happened at Mercedes is that I was forced to work with individuals I couldn’t trust […] I mean, Niki would tell me one thing, then I’d hear he had said something else. ».
The phlegmatic English engineer describes the period when he began to feel excluded from the decision-making process, a year before his departure at the head of the Brackley team: « Already, at the beginning of 2013, I discovered that Paddy Lowe (the executive director in charge of technical matters) had signed a contract to join the team and it had been signed in Stuttgart (where Daimler’s headquarters, the parent company of Mercedes, is located). When I spoke to Toto and Niki about it, they both blamed the other. I met with them together to discuss it. And both shifted the responsibility to the other… ». « I couldn’t trust these people, so I couldn’t envision the future unless I was ready to go to war and eject them. » he continues.
Ross Brawn thus delivers his own interpretation of the facts in this book. It is possible that this interpretation, and others contained in the book, may stir up a bit more excitement in the paddock in Austin this weekend for the United States Grand Prix.
