Mercedes covets the former technical director of Ferrari

If Ross Brawn is convinced of one thing, it is that his team is not currently well-equipped to compete with the firepower of Ferrari and McLaren. The Briton indeed considers his workforce insufficient and has reportedly obtained carte blanche from Daimler-Benz’s big boss, Dieter Zetsche, to lead a recruitment campaign to bring the star brand back to the top of Formula One.

The German team, which can already count on the reinforcement of Bob Bell – former technical director and team principal of the Renault team – as technical director since last April 1st, also has another engineer in its sights. Indeed, according to Autosprint.it, Ross Brawn has approached one of his former collaborators at Ferrari: Aldo Costa.

Technical director of the Scuderia until last May, the Italian engineer bore the brunt of the poor start to the season for the Maranello team, even though Stefano Domenicali did not forget to spare a thought for him after Fernando Alonso’s victory at the British Grand Prix. Initially reassigned to the production car department of the Italian brand, Costa, however, decided to make a clean break by simply leaving Ferrari, a sign, according to some observers, of a desire to continue working in Formula 1 for another team.

Aldo Costa could therefore make a comeback at Mercedes, but he will have to wait until 2012 for that in any case, as he is subject to a non-compete clause until the end of the current year.