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Sport: Formula One: Stop moaning, Lowe urges F1 chiefs: Architect of Mercedes' rise tells Paul Weaver that the sport's innovations this season should be embraced(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Paddy Lowe, the technical wizard behind Mercedes' early domination of the Formula One season, says the sport's leading figures should work harder to promote their "brilliant" product. "The leadership of F1 has a duty to promote it," Lowe says in an exclusive interview with the Guardian at the team's Brackley headquarters, sounding at once anguished and evangelical. "I'm not going to mention specific names," he adds, though the chief executive, Bernie Ecclestone, must have been uppermost in his mind. "But it's our sport. We're competing with other sports and we've got to make it successful. We should promote the great things we've done." The season, which has now reached Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix, has been dominated by Ferrari talking about "taxi-cab" driving and shorter races, Red Bull wanting to do away with the fuel-flow limits and, notably, Ecclestone complaining about the lack of noise from the more efficient cars. Lowe feels a car that produces more power, more torque and better straight-line speed, yet is 30% more efficient, is worthy of celebration. "It's like having a road car doing 30 miles to the gallon and suddenly you're doing 40, or 45," he says. "That's what we've done overnight, and it's completely remarkable." Lowe conducted his own celebration after the Bahrain Grand Prix - in which Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg completed a Mercedes one-two finish - by taking his family to a Chinese restaurant in Oxford. That race has provided Lowe with an immortal memory. "It is the final 10 laps; the image of the two Silver Arrows streaking away from the pack, in close battle with each other," he says. "That's something I will remember for ever." The Mercedes base is an intense operation but it looked almost serene in the spring sunshine as the staff arrived for work last week, chattering about the three wins that have propelled them to the top of both world championships. While the executive director, Toto Wolff, is the team's public face, Lowe is its technical heartbeat. The executive director (technical) has absorbed the duties of the technical director, Bob Bell, whose departure was announced last week. "I'm not in Formula One to get on TV," Lowe says. "Toto's very good with the press, a very personable guy. It's not an area in which we compete for space." In his large office, Lowe expands on how Mercedes set about becoming the best team: "The old Ross Brawn team had been downsized in the face of the thin budget they had. And then we had RRA [resource restriction agreement], which came in and gave the illusion of restricting resources. So this team was a little bit slow to appreciate the level of commitment being made by their competitors. I'm talking about 2010-2011. Ross [the former team principal who left Mercedes at the end of last year] then progressively built the team up. "The next push came when Toto and Niki Lauda arrived at the end of 2012, bringing in Lewis Hamilton, all working with Ross - who should take a lot of credit for the culture and approach that's still here - to go to the next stage by ramping up the resources we had to take on because of the challenge of the new rules, but also the challenge of Red Bull and Ferrari. We're still smaller, in terms of our expenditure, than those two teams." Mercedes, like Renault, would have left F1 but for the introduction of the new 1.6-litre hybrid engines. "You have to change to move forward and the formula we have created is going in the right direction," Lowe says. "We have to take note of the world around us and push technology in the direction that the automotives and the public want to see us go. "We have a role in Formula One. We're putting the word 'hybrid' into the mainstream, so people can understand it, and see the point of it." There are four reasons for Mercedes' success this season, according to Lowe. They have the "best power unit" and "one of the best cars" in terms of chassis, suspension and aerodynamics. Third, they have the advantage of a works team, "allowing us to integrate the power unit and chassis to optimal effect". And, fourth, "we have the drivers to make the most of it all". As the man responsible for the development of the power unit at Mercedes' engine base across Northamptonshire at Brixworth, Andy Cowell is probably just as important as Lowe. "The engineering groups at Brackley and Brixworth have worked together exceptionally closely to produce what we have," Cowell says. "There are lots of complex systems and to see that coming together in harmony was an exceptional feeling. To see that car pull out of the garage at the first Silverstone shakedown was a very emotional moment for all of us." For some, Lowe's pitwall instruction to allow Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg to race in Bahrain was a defining moment. "In terms of the sporting aspect, I'm in charge," he says. "If there is a call to be made, that's down to me but our approach and philosophy is something Toto and I had agreed on in advance. "Some people in the team got a little bit wobbly with the drivers competing but I'm more OK with it. If one of our drivers was going to overtake a car from another team you wouldn't be trying to control them in any way. You would rely on their skill and judgement and it should be the same between the two drivers. "It will require all of us to maintain trust between ourselves, with the key team being Toto, myself and the two drivers. We need to stick together. There will be difficult times but we all respect each other enough to get through it." Captions: Paddy Lowe says Formula One's more efficient cars are 'something worthy of celebration' Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images (c) 2014 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |