Wolff picks people away from Red Bull: 'Constant influx from them'

It is perfectly normal in the world of Formula 1 for staff to transfer from one team to another. Red Bull Racing has emphatically 'shopped' from other teams for new staff in recent years to work on the Red Bull Powertrains project. The team of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez has also plucked people from Mercedes, just as Mercedes in turn takes people away from the likes of Red Bull.

Toto Wolff, Mercedes' team boss, says he is not worried about turnover of people. "HPP (Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains) has a thousand employees and lost some to Red Bull in the same way we lost some to Ferrari and we lost some to Renault and the other way around. We are not bragging about any people that have joined us from Red Bull, we haven't mentioned the name, we have a constant influx from Red Bull people as we have from the other teams."

So at the same time, staff members are also leaving Mercedes. "The two of us [Red Bull and Mercedes] are often discussing that. So that is happening all the time, and so the people they've hired we wish them the best. Some of them were retired in our organisation and ended up there in leading position, but that's fine. So they've been given a second lifeline," Wolff said.