Red Bull is having a tough time retaining their staff while staying under the cost cap. The Milton Keynes outfit recently lost one of their top engineers, Rob Marshall, to McLaren. And just a few months ago, they had lost their COO Jayne Poole, who was hired by Mercedes as their senior advisor. However, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner doesn’t seem to be too bothered about losing his COO to Mercedes. He claims that her role in the team was too redundant to retain her.
However, Poole has been a great resource for the Mercedes team. She helped Toto Wolff structure a $100,000,000 redevelopment plan for their campus, something that has worked in the past for her ex-employer, Red Bull. The campus design will reportedly be quite similar to that of Red Bull and will help boost the morale of the employees at Mercedes.
🚨 | Former Red Bull COO Jayne Poole has joined Mercedes
She previously worked as a director for Red Bull’s HR department. The German team have appointed her as a special advisor to help the team improve its internal organization. pic.twitter.com/TwuyS0AThY
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) March 4, 2023
Toto Wolff has claimed that he has admired Poole ever since he knew her. He revealed he wanted to recruit Poole for a long time, but never could do so, till now. Wolff believes Poole is a huge reason behind the success of Red Bull. On the contrary, Horner believes that Poole was surplus to their requirements at the moment, and thus, has no regrets about letting her go.
Christian Horner is feeling the effects of the cost cap
Horner was very clear about the fact that it is becoming difficult for Red Bull to retain the top talents in their team while being under the budget cap. This was the main reason why he had to let Poole go. When asked about this migration of talent due to the cost cap, Horner said, “You have to make sure it’s not a race to the bottom.”
He explained that there are several experienced personnel who have contributed a lot towards the success of the team. However, the team is having to let them go to stay under the cost cap.
Talking about Jayne Poole, Horner explained, “We’ve had redundancies through the cap. Jayne Poole was one of those as well. She was a redundancy that we made because we couldn’t justify the role within the cap.”
Horner also spoke about Rob Marshall, the top engineer who decided to move to McLaren. “Rob was focused on other projects in recent years, and the offer that McLaren made is probably half their cap! So you can’t blame him for wanting to go and do that,” explained Horner.
Red Bull has had a bad experience with the cost cap
The Milton Keynes outfit hasn’t always been on the correct side of the budget cap. Last year, it was revealed that they had breached the cost cap in 2021, the season Max Verstappen won his first-ever World Championship title.
Even though Red Bull tried to justify the breach by explaining that they had overspent on catering, and the extra spending had nothing to do with the performance of the car, not everyone was on board with their explanation.
Toto Wolff is quite pleased with Mercedes' recent signing of former Red Bull COO, Jayne Poole.#Wolff #Mercedes #RedBull #F1 #Formula1 pic.twitter.com/JJtlROfsXC
— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) May 22, 2023
Another factor that could have led to the overspending was that Red Bull had paid a worker her full salary despite her being on sick leave for over a year. As per a report by Business F1, the person apparently held the position of COO once, so it very well could have been Poole herself. The report states that the team paid her the full salary of around $300,000, even though she was away from the team for over a year.
Overall, it is evident that Red Bull does not want a repeat of their 2021 incident. They are doing everything they can to stay under the cost cap, even if it means that they have to let their top personnel go.
