The sport of high-octane musical chairs continues as Mercedes confirms that its former chief designer, John Owen, is to go away the staff.
“We will verify that John Owen has determined that now could be the suitable time to take a break from F1 and that he will probably be leaving the staff later this yr to start a interval of gardening go away, after assuring the transition to his successor,” mentioned the staff in a press release.
Owen started his profession at Brackley, for in 2001 he joined Reynard as an aerodynamicist. He subsequently joined Sauber, the place he rose to the position of senior aerodynamicist, earlier than returning to Brackley in 2007 as principal aerodynamicist for Honda.
In 2010, following Honda’s morphing into Brawn after which Mercedes, he was promoted to the position of chief designer, and was integral to the dual-axis steering (DAS) system the German staff used with nice success in 2020, and which was subsequently banned.
A Mercedes spokesman mentioned that Owen has been concerned in designing each Mercedes automobile because the Silver Arrows returned to the game, this yr’s W17 being his seventeenth.
Based on Reuters, engineering director Giacomo Tortora will take over Owen’s position as Director of Automotive Design, the group overseen by Deputy Technical Director, Simone Resta.
