Will Lowe stay or go?

From Motorsport

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/rival-f1-team-bid-for-lowe-adds-pressure-to-mercedes-talks-Talks between Paddy Lowe and Mercedes regarding his future at the Brackley-based outfit appear to be entering a crunch phase, amid suggestions that he could be poised to accept an offer to join a rival team.

Lowe’s future at Mercedes has been the subject of speculation for months after it emerged that discussions to frame an extension of his contract at the outfit had been delayed until the end of this year.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff and Lowe did not want the talk to distract from their efforts to secure a third consecutive Formula 1 championship double.

Lowe himself said at last weekend’s Autosport Awards that there was no ulterior motive to the delay in the discussions, and that he saw "no reason" for him to change.

"I’ve been with Mercedes for 22 years now, either working for them or with them, so I have got no reason to see why that should change. It is going very well,” he said.

"Toto and I had a discussion that, let’s wait until the end of the season and get that out of the way, and we will take it from there.”

But amid suggestions that the key disagreement between Lowe and his bosses relates to his salary, sources have revealed that – with another outfit willing to outbid Mercedes – the 53-year-old could be poised to make a switch.

Williams return?

It is unclear which team is the main contender to lure him away, but it is understood not to be Ferrari – which has been most strongly liked with the Briton. A switch to another British team is much more likely.

McLaren has completely ruled out any interest, with a team spokesman saying: "We have absolutely no plans to rehire Paddy, since we are entirely satisfied with our current senior engineering management team."

While Renault is restructuring, the most logical destination for Lowe would be a return to Williams, where he started his F1 career. The outfit could even offer him equity as part of any agreement in an attempt to secure his services.

It is thought that a final decision on his plans has not yet been made, but should no agreement be reached between Lowe and Mercedes imminently, then it could force the German car manufacturer to move quickly for a replacement.

The most likely candidate is former Ferrari technical director James Allison, who has been linked with Mercedes for some time and may even already have an option with the outfit to be on call when his gardening leave runs out early next year.

 

Should Lowe stay or should Lowe go?

Great! Ferrari won't be getting him anyway while Allison might end up at Mercedes. Great!

 

Lowe's gone to Williams.

Swap for Bottas I reckon

 

Lowe gone.

 

Allison to replace him so the party so the party will continue at Merc.

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk

 

The stumbling block for Lowe staying at Mercedes is apparently money.

Paddy wants to stay, and Toto wants him to stay, but they cannot agree on the money.

So, if Mercedes find Lowe's asking price too high, how could Williams afford him?

 

Equity.

 

Looks like Williams is where he is going, wheels coming off at Mercedes? Rosberg and Lowe gone.

Mercedes F1 tech chief Lowe set for shock Williams switch

Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe is poised to make a shock switch to Williams next season, with multiple sources indicating that he has accepted an offer to join the Grove-based team.

On the back of three consecutive Formula 1 world championship titles, Lowe’s future at Mercedes had been the subject of speculation for months after it emerged his contract was due to run out at the end of the year.

Talks between Lowe and Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff about extending his deal had been delayed until after the season, but it emerged this week that the intensity of the negotiations had ramped up after a rival team had made a serious bid to lure Lowe away.

According to sources with good knowledge of the situation, that team is Williams – which is looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2016 campaign, where it dropped to fifth place in the constructors’ championship battle.

Although there has been no official confirmation from either team on the situation, it is understood that Lowe has indicated that he will accept what Williams has to offer.

Furthermore, with his contract at Mercedes due to expire on December 31, it is possible that he will not be forced to take a lengthy period of gardening leave – meaning he could be able to switch teams for the start of 2017 season.

It is unclear exactly what Lowe’s position will be at Williams, but it has been thought for some time that its technical chief Pat Symonds has been looking to bow out of F1 after a lengthy career.

There could, as such, be a transition phase, where Symonds hands over control to Lowe so that he can retire at the end of 2017.

Lowe may, however, take on even greater team management responsibilities, as it has been clear that his motivation for the prior move from McLaren to Mercedes was to be involved in running a team.

Should the Lowe move happen, then it is almost certain that former Ferrari technical director James Allison will be drafted into Mercedes to replace him and work alongside Wolff.

 

Dum dum dummmmmmm.

 

Ferrari doesn't need another mercenary which will bring another culture unable to work with italian mentality.
They need to promote young italian's engineers inside the team and create their own strenght.
I trust binotto will do the job next year.

 

Not accordingly to the majority of people in here who think Italians are all incompetent baffoons. I just think Allison was the best man for the job and now he'll be against us.

 

Ferrari Is italian and even during the schumacher era the vast majority of workers were italian's too.
This Is why this brand Is so special.
I don't buy the "italians are all incompetent baffoons" and people here who thinks like that are not tifosis for me,simple as that..

 

Its all making kinda sense now ...'Ok Claire you get Paddy, plus Jenson. We get Bottas.'

 

Williams? Question is...will they ever progress? They have been more less where they are for the last couple of seasons now.

 

Ferrari will always be Italian - They're never going to move production away from Italy (The closest they have come to their F1 department being outside of Italy was '88~'90, when John Barnard set up The Ferrari Guildford Technical Office in the UK, and that just ended up causing far too many problems).

The idea of Ferrari only employing Italian talent when it comes to F1 engineers, designers, major staff members and mechanics in the modern era of F1 though, would frankly, be ridiculous!

To be truly competitive, Ferrari need to employ the best staff it can, from all around the World regardless of nationality, and not limit itself only to those from Italy -That goes for all team members and drivers.

You talk about the majority of Ferrari workers being Italian in the Schumacher era. Whilst that's true of those who went to work and basically just did what they were told to do (the actual assembly work), the people who were actually running the show were not Italian:

Team Principal: Jean Todt (French)
Technical Director: Ross Brawn (British)
Chief Designer: Rory Byrne (South African)
Chief Mechanic: Nigel Stepney (British)
Driver: Michael Schumacher (German)
Driver: Eddie Irvine (Irish)
Driver: Rubens Barrichello (Brazilian)
Driver: Felipe Massa (Brazilian)

The only Italian involved in any way whatsoever with "The Ferrari Dream Team" of Schumacher's era, was Luca di Montezemolo, and he was smart enough to realise that in order for Ferrari to succeed, they needed to employ the best people from around the World for the top jobs.

As for statements along the lines of: "Italians are all incompetent buffoons", unfortunately, the nature of Fchat tends to be that people vent their frustrations publicly, and also tend to use generalisations and stereotypes whilst describing their frustrations.

The reality is of course: No!, Italians are not all:"incompetent buffoons".

However, when it comes to Ferrari, when the management has been mainly Italian, success on track has more often than not been hampered by departmental infighting and poor "on the spot" decision making/tactics, often giving the impression that those in charge are buffoons.

Look back at Ferrari's pre and post Schumacher era's - How much success was there? How much infighting was there?

Sometimes, the Latin temperament and passion is not what is best for Ferrari, especially when it comes to running the team.

The idea of selecting Italians before anyone else for the jobs at Ferrari might seem like a great idea to some, but the reality is, it would actually be detrimental to the team's chances of success if they limited themselves to home grown talent only/first.

The rest of the team is no different to the driver's that Ferrari choose to drive for them - They have to pick the best available in order to achieve success, not just Italians!

 

Exactly

 

Mmmm... How deep Mr. Stroll´s pockets are? Or maybe Sir Frank is going to fire his daughter to offer Lowe her job.

 

Well, actually Binotto is Swiss!

 

Of course you're right, i'm just fed up with all this stereotyp talks about italians.
I just want to underline that no messiah will save the scuderia, even if they are allison or lowe.

 

I think that the takeaway from this is that for top engineer/designer types, Ferrari is not an attractive place to work. Most of those at the top of F1 management, engineering and design are Brits. Fitting into an environment that is so Italian must be difficult. Ferrari needs to hope that an Italian superman immerges from the management team to take control of the operation.

 

That makes sense but how much equity is there to offer? Frank's family, Patrick Head, Toto and Brad Hollinger all have ownership: Lawrence Stroll is now heavily involved with Williams, I would think that he will be getting a stake as well.

 

Not as long as they are a customer of Mercedes who is a factory team.

 

+1

 

I'm afraid you need to have a bit of a thick skin when it comes to Fchat's F1 section!

The problem is, when it comes to Ferrari, even the slightest problem tends to get blown up out of all proportion here, and history has shown us that sometimes, Ferrari are their own worst enemy, giving those both for and against the Scuderia ammunition to throw around.

You're totally correct - There isn't a single Messiah who can save the Scuderia, you need a team of top people who all gel and work well together.

Even in Schumacher's era, it had to be a team effort. Without Brawn, Byrne, Todt and everyone else in the team, Schuey wouldn't have won anything like as much as he did (which is why he always went out of his way to thank the entire team instead of taking all of the credit himself for his success himself).

Paddy Lowe isn't the reason why Mercedes have been so successful, he is just one member of the team that worked so well together. Yes they had a big car advantage, but they still had to have a good team to make it all work well.

Rumour has it that Paddy Lowe is off to Williams - Will he be their saviour?, the silver bullet that fixes all of their problems? - I doubt it!

He can help of course, but it still requires the rest of the team to work together to turn their fortunes around, and in F1 there are no guarantee's.

It would have been the same situation had he joined Ferrari, as was being suggested - On his own, his chances of changing things would have been limited (that goes for the idea of Adrian Newey joining Ferrari also!).

It takes a whole team of people who gel together and get the best out of each other to be successful, and in F1 that's hard to achieve! - The added pressure of being Ferrari, having every minuscule thing analysed in minute detail, and with so much expectation for success placed upon them, makes it even harder still!

 

That´s the smallest of their problems right now: they´re not even the best Mercedes customer team. First they have to be the "best of the rest" before getting factory support from someone.