One of Toto Wolff’s top lieutenants, chief technical officer Mike Elliott, left the company, and Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz has expressed concerns about Mercedes’ future.
Following the departure of yet another important member of the management “dream team,” Mercedes now faces a significant challenge.
Ted Kravitz, a seasoned reporter covering Formula 1 pit lanes, believes that. During the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend, he was reflecting on the Mercedes team’s future while speaking on his Sky Sports Ted’s Notebook program.
It was announced before the Sao Paulo race that Mike Elliott had left Mercedes after eleven years of service. It happened just over six months after the team’s relative lack of competitiveness over the previous two seasons led to a job switch that saw James Allison assume the position of technical director.
Kravitz wondered what effect that development would have going forward in terms of the team’s leadership. “Despite being in charge of the design group that made these last two cars so incorrect, Mike Elliott, their chief technical officer, was instrumental in so much of their success, and this is their first race since his departure,” he said.
“I wonder if the Mercedes dream team is changing so much right now that they can recover quickly and turn back into that dream team once more. While Toto Wolff, Andrew Shovlin, and James Allison are still there, there have been some significant departures, including Andy Cowell, James Vowles, and the Italian engineer Aldo Costa.
And I’m just wondering if this team is changing in any way, if they’re going through a transition, and if the dream team mentality and caliber will endure into the following season, as all dream teams do. Lewis Hamilton thinks they can, so I think we need to think they can too, though it will be difficult moving forward.”
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton responded to Elliott’s exit by rejecting the notion that he had suffered as a result of Mercedes’s difficulties during the previous two years. “We must keep in mind that no one person is responsible for everything. The seven-time world champion remarked, “We approach everything as a team.
There isn’t just one person to blame for where we are; rather, it’s a group of people because there are so many moving parts at the factory. It grieves me greatly to see Mike go. He and I go back to our McLaren days. He was there before I raced in Formula One for McLaren. Mike and I get along well very well. Working with him on this team has been a pleasure. He is really a bright person.
” He was someone I would always speak to on aerodynamics. He was amazing at explaining everything to me, so I learned a lot from him. But it’s his decision to move on and do something different. I wish him absolutely all the best and I’m super grateful for all his contributions over these years. I know whatever he’s going to do next, he’s going to be great because he’s a super brain.”
And Russell added: “Mike has been a huge part of the team and it’s very important to remember that he was the chief aerodynamicist during all of the glory years, and arguably that is, alongside the technical director, that is probably the most vital part of every Formula 1 team. So Mike has been a huge part of that success and I wish him well.”
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