Red Bull loses key engineers to Mercedes

After McLaren raided Red Bull’s aero department Mercedes has now head hunted two key engineers from the Milton Keynes team.

Mark Ellis is to be Performance Director, while Giles Wood will be Chief Engineer, Simulation and Development. Both will join in June.

Ellis is in effect returning home previously worked for the team in its BAR Honda guise as Head of Mechanical Design in 2000-2001. After a spell at Jaguar he had another stint in Brackley as Chief Engineer in 2002-2008.

Meanwhile according to rivals Lotus continues to lose personnel. If their contracts have been breached by late payments they can walk straight into new jobs without gardening leave.