There used to be a time when Groff Willis was in the news every other day (like Andrian Newey is now a days), though I must admit not for good reasons. He has some really decent credentials which unfortunately are belittled due to his lackluster tenure at Honda. Willis and Newey worked together at Williams for many years, the former recruiting Willis to Williams when he joined the team, so its a surprise that it didn't work well for him when he joined RedBull racing as a Technical Director, reporting to Newey.
Aldo Costa had a better time at F1 compared to Willis. Although he started with Minardi, he moved up to the role of technical director at Ferrari, but later relinquished it in May 2011, a hint at him joining Mercedes perhaps.
Only time will tell how good these recruits are for Mercedes, for sure Michael and Brawn have experience working with Costa but Willis career has gone from a high to a low and there have been times when he was accused of things which people don't take lightly in F1. Though in all fairness, Hondas best years were when Willis was working with them.
Mercedes are clearly showing their intention to get the right people at the right places, I just hope they don't go the BAR/Honda way.
This reminds me of Nick Fry managed days of this team, when Fry used to take the Honda bosses in Japan on similar spending spree. And we know how that one ended. I suspect this will be another case of "too many cooks"
ReplyDeleteI agree. They have too many "technical chiefs" in that team now.
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