Ferrari steal Lewis Hamilton's key Mercedes ally in major blow for Toto Wolff
Mercedes are reportedly set to lose one of their key staff members to Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton shows off his impressive surfing skills
Ferrari are reportedly set to poach Mercedes performance director Loic Serra in what could turn out to be a crushing blow for the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff. The Italian team are said to be on the lookout for new members of staff after seeing a number of important figures move elsewhere on the grid over the last few months.
Former head of vehicle concept David Sanchez left Ferrari to return to McLaren earlier this year, while race director Laurent Mekies has agreed to become AlphaTauri's new team principal ahead of next season. The Maranello squad are set to respond by landing Serra, who has agreed to join the team from Mercedes upon the expiry of his existing contract, according to Formu1a.uno.
It is said that discussions are still taking place in order to finalise the terms of the deal, but there is an expectation that Serra will eventually jump ship to Ferrari after 15 years with the Silver Arrows. He remains under contract with Mercedes until 2025 and is expected to honour the rest of his agreement, which means that he will not be able to begin work at Ferrari for another two years.
The news of Serra's impending move comes after Frederic Vasseur revealed that he had signed a 'top guy' to help Ferrari reach their long-term objectives, telling Marca: "We know that if we want to recruit, we are speaking not in days, we are speaking in years.
"I signed a top guy a couple of weeks ago to join in 2025. He will only work on the car in 2025 and 2026. It seems a long wait but on the other hand, if you don’t do it, it will be even worse in six months. You have to accept it as a basic of F1."
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how much of an impact Serra's move to Ferrari will have on Mercedes, who he joined from BMW Sauber in 2010 before presiding over eight successive Constructors' Championship titles between 2014 and 2021. Toto Wolff recently insisted that employees joining other teams is simply part of the sport, with plenty of engineers having moved back and forth between Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari over the last few years.
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"We lost some to Red Bull in the same way we lost some to Ferrari and we lost some to Renault," said Wolff. "We are not bragging about having people join us from Red Bull, we have not mentioned the names but we have a constant influx of Red Bull people as we have from the other teams.
"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 positions, but that’s fine, so they’ve been given a second life."