Paddy is off too !

[driveace]

Latest news is that Mercedes are losing Paddy Lowe to Williams
Mercedes wanted Bottas ,but Williams are reluctant to release him even with Mercedes offering over £8 million of help to Williams
Now does Rob Smedley go back to Ferrari or does he stay ?

[I am evil Homer]

And James Allison goes to Mercedes...but given both will have cooling off periods they liekly won't start at their new teams until the summer of 2017, so zero impact on next year's cars...at least for their new employers.

[Nitrodaze]

Latest news is that Mercedes are losing Paddy Lowe to Williams
Mercedes wanted Bottas ,but Williams are reluctant to release him even with Mercedes offering over £8 million of help to Williams
Now does Rob Smedley go back to Ferrari or does he stay ?

He is overrated, if he were a driver, he would have been dumped at the end of the 2014 season. The Mercedes has had reliability issue of all sorts over the last three years and it never really improved over that time. It actually got worst in 2016 with two embarrassing engine failures, loads of clutch problems and a number incorrect start mode setups afflicting Rosberg and Hamilton, while the Mercedes customer teams enjoyed good engine reliability all season; except for Massa who had a heating problem on one occasion.

He picked up Brawns hard work and never really seemed to progress it. I think the enduring foundations of Brawn's efforts that put the Mercedes at the sharp end of the grid and the lack of real competition from rival teams is what carried the Mercedes through the sloppy reliability problems they have had over the last three seasons.

Lowe is clearly not top team material, he did not perform to Mercedes' high standards. He is not good enough to go to Ferrari. He would fair well at a midfield team like Williams.

But l wonder what is going to happen to Smedley who l think is having a similar problem. The 2016 Williams was the worst car put forward by the Williams team since 2013. The car dragged Williams from its well admired third place to fifth on Smedley's watch in one season. It is the sort of performance that is career ending really. The decision not to design a new car for 2016 which may have been due to a cost saving exercise, has proved more costly than the saving of not building a new car in the end. It was clearly a very bad decision as the season of Williams has shown.

[Nitrodaze]

F1 is a funny ole world. As it goes it is Pat Symond's neck on the block and not Smedley's. At least we now know who got it wrong for Williams in 2016. It is great to see Claire Williams play hard ball with the big boys. Symonds is as big as they come. Happy to hear Smedley might be safe for another season at least.

[Jag_Warrior]

Mercedes announced that Paddy has officially departed the team. Now is he lining up to be team principal at Williams, once a replacement for Symonds is found (James Key)???

[Nitrodaze]

Mercedes announced that Paddy has officially departed the team. Now is he lining up to be team principal at Williams, once a replacement for Symonds is found (James Key)???

James Key has been linked to Mercedes for some time now. It is possible that Lowe is replacing Symonds.