Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff admits Ross Brawn will be missed

Brawn has chosen to retire from F1 in the wake of a management reshuffle at Mercedes which ended up with Wolff and Paddy Lowe being made joint executive directors.

Although the team has put a brave face on since Brawn's departure, Wolff reckons that he will be missed most once the stresses of the 2014 campaign begin.

"Of course there is always an impact when somebody like Ross leaves," explained Wolff.

"He was an iconic leader, and we are going to notice that he is missing when it is getting stressful on race weekends. His leadership and his guidance is something that was extraordinary.

"It has been felt that he has gone, but it [Mercedes] is a large organisation with a couple of hundred really good people, and that is why we are trying to saddle it up."

Lowe, who joined from McLaren after being promised a senior team management role, reckoned that the different spheres of influences that he and Wolff have are good for the team.

"I like to paint it more as a partnership and not a division of responsibility," he said. "We work together on most things.

"He happens to specialize more on the commercial side, and myself on the technical side, but between us we're running the team.

"Of course, my background is technical director so that gives me a benefit to understand some of the things they are doing. But my role won't be hugely different to what Ross did the previous few years.

"It's something that is very exciting for me to move forward into, for both next season and the ones beyond."