Lewis Hamilton has key ally stolen as Mercedes suffer yet another F1 blow
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have endured a difficult F1 season so far
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Mercedes performance director Loic Serra is poised to join Ferrari, according to reports.
The Silver Arrows and Lewis Hamilton have endured a difficult F1 season so far, with Red Bull and Max Verstappen dominating the sport once again.
And with Serra set to depart, according to Formu1a.uno, that will leave Mercedes with a void to fill.
Ferrari have already lost head of vehicle conept David Sanchez, who left the team in ordwer to return to McLaren earlier in the year.
Mercedes are poised to lose chief Loic Serra to F1 rivals Ferrari
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And race director Laurent Mekies has agreed to leave Ferrari for AlphaTauri, too, where he'll be the new team principal.
Discussions are still taking place as Ferrari look to bring in Serra.
Yet there's an expectancy the deal will go ahead and the 51-year-old will cross the divide after 15 years with Mercedes.
As things stand, he remains under contract with the team until 2025.
And Serra will reportedly see out the final two years of his contract before leaving his current role for a new challenge.
Ferrari chief Frederic Vasseur recently confirmed they would be hiring a 'top guy' to help the giants challenge for F1 titles in the future.
"We know that if we want to recruit, we are speaking not in days, we are speaking in years," he said.
"I signed a top guy a couple of weeks ago to join in 2025. He will only work on the car in 2025 and 2026.
"It seems a long wait but on the other hand, if you don’t do it, it will be even worse in six months.
"You have to accept it as a basic of F1."
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff recently admitted that staff changing teams was part and parcel of F1.
"We lost some to Red Bull in the same way we lost some to Ferrari and we lost some to Renault," said the Austrian.
"We are not bragging about having people join us from Red Bull, we have not mentioned the names but we have a constant influx of Red Bull people as we have from the other teams.
"That is happening all the time and so the people they’ve hired, we wish them the best.
"Some of them were retired in our organisation and ended up there in leading positions, but that’s fine, so they’ve been given a second life."
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Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes are lagging behind Red Bull in F1 this season
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Meanwhile, as for Hamilton, Wolff recently said a new contract for the 38-year-old was 'emotionally' done.
But his comments were scrutinised by former Mercedes star Nico Rosberg, with the German also making it clear he wants Hamilton to continue in the sport.
“Can someone tell me what that means when a contract is emotionally done?" he said.
"I have no idea where they are at, or why Lewis is taking so much time.
"All of us hope that he will continue of course, and it really seems to be the case. Especially with the car progressing now, that’s going to help that contract process also.
"Once Lewis now feels the possibility ‘Hey I can do pole positions again, I can win races, yeah I want to continue doing this’."
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