Mercedes F1 Team Principal Ross Brawn "will leave his position" at the end of the F1 season, according to Benson & Jordan of the BBC.
Sources close to Mercedes said that Brawn and Mercedes "have failed to reach an agreement on a role in which he would have been happy to stay at the team."
Mercedes "will now be run in tandem by their two executive directors, Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe," along with Non-Exec Chair Niki Lauda.
Both Mercedes and Brawn "refused to comment on the development." Brawn, 58, "wanted to stay in overall charge, as he made clear at the Japanese Grand Prix earlier this month."
However, sources close to the team said that option "was never open" (BBC, 10/29). In London, Paul Weaver reported Brawn was thought to be on the verge of leaving when Lowe, the former Technical Dir at McLaren, "was signed last winter before Mercedes said they wanted a 'soft transition.'" It is thought that Brawn "would prefer to remain with Mercedes until next year, to oversee the biggest technical changes in the sport since 2009." But at stake is "what control he would have and Brawn, who has always been his own man, would want to retain overall power." A spokesperson for the team would only say that Lauda "had already confirmed Mercedes will not announce anything regarding Brawn's future until the end of the season" (GUARDIAN, 10/29).
