Rosberg finds Mercedes’ lack of F1 technical staff poaching ‘strange’

While the likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari and McLaren have all made key signings from rival organisations, Mercedes have so far opted against following a similar path.

Several top engineers have recently departed Red Bull, including Dan Fallows to Aston Martin, and veteran chief engineering officer Rob Marshall, who will leave the reigning world champions at the end of 2023 to join McLaren. 

In response to a disappointing start to the season, Mercedes completed a major reorganisation of the their technical division in April that saw James Allison return as technical director in a role swap with Mike Elliott. 

2016 world champion Rosberg admitted he is surprised his former team has not moved to lure rival staff.

“I’ve heard that Dan Fallows has also been quadrupled in salary plus an equity stake in the team,” Rosberg told Sky.

“The teams are going for it to try and get the talent from Red Bull which is the normal way in F1. That’s what always happens.

“Mercedes – strange that they haven’t been a little bit more active there [in poaching from rivals].

“The knowledge that you also get around a set of regulations when you take someone from the best team is just so valuable. Perhaps that’s a little surprising.”

According to Helmut Marko, Mercedes failed in an attempt to sign tech guru Adrian Newey before he committed his future to Red Bull.

“Then again, of course, they have incredible talent at Mercedes and now the pictures from Monaco help a lot because thanks to Sergio [Perez]’s crash,” Rosberg continued.

“There are beautiful pictures of the underbody of the car which they can now take from those pictures and create a whole CAD model and do a whole accurate design in the computer of what that car is actually doing.

“That makes it very easy to start to really understand and learn about that Red Bull car.”