Background | The five Mercedes staff joining Red Bull Powertrains
F1 News
Red Bull Racing will be taking on their own power unit project in the future. The team previously announced the signing of Ben Hodgkinson, who came from Mercedes. The new Techincal Director at Red Bull Powertrains isn't making the journey to Milton Keynes on his own.
On Thursday morning, Red Bull Powertrains confirmed the arrival of five more senior members as Christian Horner looks to gather the best team in the business to take on Mercedes when the new engine rules and regulations arrive in 2025.
Decades of Mercedes experience
During the current turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes have been untouchable at the top of the world championship. They have won every single constructors championship in this era, with Lewis Hamilton [6] and Nico Rosberg [1] taking all the drivers championships.
Red Bull's PU production manager will be Steve Blewett who has spent nearly 11 years at Mercedes. But his time in Formula 1 dates all the way back to 1989 when he joined Williams. He was the production director at Williams.
During his time at the team, Blewett played a pivotal role in securing Williams five constructors championships and four drivers championships. He left Williams in 2010, to join Mercedes.
Head of Powertrains Electronics and ERS at Red Bull Powertrains will be Omid Mostaghimi. He joined Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains in 2012 and is currently the electronics team leader.
Head of Mechanical Design ERS at Red Bull Powertrains will be Pip Clode. Clode has spent 15 years at Mercedes and is currently the team leader of their F1 power unit concept team. In this role, Clode will have spent time developing concepts and technology to help improve the power units. This experience and knowledge will be extremely important for Red Bull who will be developing from their project from scratch.
Anton Mayo will join Red Bull as their Head of PU Design ICE who has spent time as an engineering leader at Mercedes. And finally, Red Bull's Group Leader ICE Operations will be run by Steve Brodie who also comes from Mercedes.
Opinion | What does this mean?
This is massive for Red Bull Powertrains. Pinching one, or two Mercedes engineers is all well and good. But to bring over six senior members of the Mercedes HPP team is a massive scalp for Christian Horner, Helmut Marko and even Max Verstappen.
They'll be plenty of cohesion between these members. But most importantly, they've all worked and helped guide Mercedes to World Championship winning seasons. They've helped build possibly the most dominant engine Formula 1 has ever known. At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Horner made it clear the talent pool is in the United Kingdom and now we all understand exactly what he means.
There's plenty of spread on the table as well. A focus on both ERS and ICE showcasing Red Bull have plenty of bases covered for when the new engine regulations arrive. This is fantastic for Red Bull and for the future of Formula 1.