Ross Brawn says the Mercedes F1 chiefs Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda cannot take all the credit for making the Silver Arrows into the winning outfit it is right now,
Speaking to F1 Racing, Brawn said, “I think Toto himself said how lucky he was to walk in to a championship-winning team just before it started winning the championship. But in fairness, Toto and Niki did contribute, and they didn’t drop the ball.”
After Brawn led his eponymous team to Formula 1 world titles in 2009, he sold to Mercedes and stayed on in a senior management role. But in 2013, a year before colossal success came the way of the team, Brawn decided to leave.
“I’ve never regretted my decision to leave the sport,” explained Brawn. “It became a muddle. There were too many people involved. I was tired and a bit disillusioned with Formula 1 at that stage, partly, I think, because I recognised my own failings in terms of what had been going on for those past few years.”
But at the same time he admits that he was very happy for the team, particularly those from the Brawn GP days who remained with the team when it morphed into Mercedes.
“Equally, I still had a lot of friends there who had gone through the experience of Brawn GP. So I felt great for the people who were winning the championship, because they really deserved it,” added Brawn.