Wolff reveals Red Bull approached 100 Mercedes staff

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that rival team Red Bull approached around 100 of their engineers at Brackley and Brixworth with offers designed to 'poach' key staff.

Wolff said it was inevitable that Red Bull would try and recruit staff from Mercedes, as the team takes over the development of its power unit from Honda at the end of the season.

"It's pretty obvious that if you want to set up an engine factory in the UK, there's only one [place to recruit staff] - and that's us," he told Sky Sports F1 in Barcelona on Friday afternoon.

Mercedes offering staff double pay to avoid exodus – Marko

"The project is a Mount Everest to climb.

"I think they approached 100 people or so and they got 15 maybe," he said. "We have 900 or so employees, and if you're fishing out 15 of these that's pretty normal.

"But they went mainly after manufacturing staff, so it's not really performance. I guess they want to build up the the company."

Red Bull consultant Dr Helmut Marko previously suggested that Mercedes has offered to double the salaries of key engineering personnel who choose to stay at Mercedes.

But Wolff feared that in that case, Red Bull would then offer three times the amount.

"Doubling the salaries is one thing, he said. "But if you triple them, at a certain stage you're not going to compete anymore, even for loyal people."

However Wolff said he understood Red Bull's strategy and didn't hold it against them.

"I'd like to have a fight with Red Bull power units," he insisted. "It is what it is. I respect everybody that wants to defend his business or build their business. And retaliation time has not yet come!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.