Daimler completes Mercedes GP purchase

2011 F1 season

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Mercedes, Barcelona, 2011

Daimler has completed its purchase of the Mercedes Grand Prix team.

It announced today it has acquired the final 24.9% stake in the company held by Ross Brawn’s management team.

Daimler jointly owns the company with Aabar Investment PJS, a global investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi government whose logo appears on the Mercedes F1 cars.

Daimler will own 60% of Mercedes and Aabar the remaining 40%, pending approval of the deal by the German regulatory body.

Brawn described the move as “a further step in the consolidation and strengthening of our team for the future.”

“I remain fully committed to our team for the long-term, along with the management team and all of our employees. We all look forward to the challenge of making our team successful, and proudly representing Mercedes-Benz and the racing tradition of the Silver Arrows.”

Daimler board member Thomas Weber said the move will allow Brawn to focus his time on running the team: “This step will bring the colleagues from our Formula 1 chassis and engine groups even closer together and thereby help to develop our team step-by-step into a winning Formula 1 outfit.

“We now also fulfil Ross’ wish of being in a position to focus wholly on the complex technical challenges of Formula 1 and on his role as our team principal.”

Mercedes took over the running of the Brawn team, formerly Honda, at the end of 2009.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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28 comments on “Daimler completes Mercedes GP purchase”

  1. Hamish
    28th February 2011, 11:41

    What to trail – Tyrell to BAR to Honda to Brawn to Mercedes

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      Eggry (@eggry)
      28th February 2011, 12:11

      Who’s next?

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        BasCB (@bascb)
        28th February 2011, 12:20

        Maybe a rebranding as Maybach?

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          GeeMac (@geemac)
          28th February 2011, 12:43

          Or a sponsor deal from Lotus…they are handing them out left right and centre.

        2. thatscienceguy
          28th February 2011, 13:37

          “Today we are proud to reveal the first Formula 1 car from Maybach. With a wheelbase of 22 feet it’s sure to be the roomiest car on the grid.”

          1. Palle
            1st March 2011, 15:25

            It’ll be so wide, that it will be impossible to overtake;-)

  2. frood1919
    28th February 2011, 11:46

    Brawn described the move as “a further step in the consolidation and strengthening of our team for the future.”

    translation: “I’m absolutely rolling in it now”

    1. Sush Meerkat
      28th February 2011, 12:03

      hahaha, ye of little faith.

      Wasn’t there rumours running around that Fiat had shares of Daimler?, if thats true then Luca gets his wish of more Ferrari’s on track.

      What with the Lotus Renault and Red bull Racing infiniti its getting too confusing… STOP THE MADNESS!

      1. Sush Meerkat
        28th February 2011, 12:04

        edit!, didn’t Ross Brawn buy the Honda team for pennis?

        1. spanky the wonder monkey
          28th February 2011, 12:10

          as far as typos go, i think we’d better go with ‘pennies’ ;-)

        2. Calum
          28th February 2011, 12:22

          Haha…

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          Todfod (@todfod)
          28th February 2011, 15:46

          Lol. What a transaction that would be! I would hate to be Ross Brawn after that transaction.

      2. Coefficient
        28th February 2011, 12:16

        What’s confusing about it? Get a grip, its only a few names.

        1. PT
          28th February 2011, 19:21

          Sush and Coefficient,

          Red Bull-Infiniti, Lotus Renault GP, Team Lotus-Nissan, Sauber-Maserati, Force India- Maybach, Toro Rosso-Fiat – that’s what you get if all F1 manufacturers decided to enhance their various brands by naming their engines after them!

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      BasCB (@bascb)
      28th February 2011, 12:21

      LOL, Ross will be pretty well served with his pension plan.
      Maybe now buy a few Williams shares for if Mercedes grows tired of him?

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    Mister Nillionaire (@mister-nillionaire)
    28th February 2011, 12:02

    Good news for them I guess.

    Sidenote:
    there is a mispell in ‘company owned by the Abu Dhabiu government’

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      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      28th February 2011, 12:06

      Fixed, thanks.

  4. Calum
    28th February 2011, 12:25

    All I can really see this as is ‘it makes it easy for Mercedes to sell the team.’

    I can’t see them staying for too long unfortunately, not since Toyota, Honda, and BMW all withdrew in such a short period of time.

    1. LewisC
      28th February 2011, 12:40

      I can see them staying if the Volkswagen group gets their team off the ground.

      It’s no big surprise to me that they’ve bought the rest though – Brawn never really wanted to be a team owner.

      1. Calum
        28th February 2011, 13:25

        I hope you are right! If only BMW stayed a couple of seasons longer… must admit I lost a lot of respect for BMW (and Toyota) for the way they left the sport, at least Honda did all they could for Brawn.

        1. Merk
          28th February 2011, 13:58

          Good Point. Although, I think Toyota only bailed from a PR standpoint. They knew they were going to enter into a phase of billion dollar recalls and hundreds of layoffs. Its not like they stopped spending money on the program, they still developed a car for 2010, but bernie shut the door on the possibility of an investor to get a grid slot.

          I miss toyota, bmw meh… it was always a sauber to me.

          1. sam
            28th February 2011, 14:21

            Apart from when it was a Williams ;)

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      GeorgeTuk (@georgetuk)
      28th February 2011, 14:56

      I can see them staying longer actually, mark conditions are different now.

      And plus I don’t think they expected to walk in and win, yes they got Schumacher but realistically he can stay a bit longer. Year 3 will be crucial.

  5. Ralph Schumacher
    28th February 2011, 14:15

    Does any1 have any idea how much of a profit Ross Brawn made after buying the car from Honda and selling it to Mercedes?? Gotta admire the guys Business savvy. Him and Nick Fry ofcoarse.

    1. spanky the wonder monkey
      28th February 2011, 15:45

      don’t think it was ever disclosed as to how much ross paid honda (rumours at the time were £1 iirc), however the sale of brawn gp to merc was around £110m (wikipedia).

      in fairness to ross, he did a little more than ‘buy it from honda and sell it to merc’, there was the small matter of winning the WCC & WDC in the process. that puts more value on it than a bit of spit & polish.

  6. Icemangrins
    1st March 2011, 0:37

    great, now make the car run faster

  7. tequilatim
    1st March 2011, 4:38

    Too bad, was hoping they were now called Lotus-Mercedes

  8. DGR-F1
    1st March 2011, 13:47

    So does this mean that Ross would rather have someone like Norbert telling him what to do, than be in control himself?
    Although we could all see it coming from the start, when Mercedes gave their engines to Brawn, and its obvious that Mercedes just like throwing their money around until they get results, its still a strange move at a strange time – economically speaking
    Is the PR value of owning an expensive toy like an F1 team going to be of enough significance financially to the rest of the group’s products?
    Surely now is the time for Daimler to pull back and just provide the engines and engineers, not go ahead with a buyout?

Comments are closed.