Norbert Haug has denied Niki Lauda played a decisive role in his departure as Mercedes’ motor sport boss.<\/p>\n
When it was announced on Thursday that, after 22 years, 60-year-old Haug will not be with the German marque in 2013, some sensed the hand of Mercedes’ new non-executive chairman, triple world champion and Austrian great Lauda.<\/p>\n
“I want to state strongly that this was a decision that the board and I reached by consensus.\u00a0 Niki had absolutely nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n
“We have respected each other over the years, and this changes nothing,” Haug told the news agency SID.<\/p>\n
He hinted that Mercedes’ failure to properly succeed since forming its works team in 2010 was a reason for the split.<\/p>\n
“We have had success in the past three years, but not enough consistently,” said Haug.<\/p>\n
Niki Lauda told German television Sky: “I was just as surprised as anyone about Norbert.<\/p>\n
“For me personally, I’m sorry about it.\u00a0 I have always had a very good relationship with him and would have very much liked to have continued to work with him.”<\/p>\n
Michael Schumacher, who is returning to retirement in 2013 after three seasons with Mercedes, also sounded disappointed with the decision.<\/p>\n
“This step represents a major turning point,” the seven time world champion said on his website.<\/p>\n
“His departure will tear a big gap in both our sport and our team.”<\/p>\n
German motor racing federation president Hans-Joachim Stuck is quoted by Speed Week: “Norbert has also had some health problems, perhaps that played a role.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Norbert Haug has denied Niki Lauda played a decisive role in his departure as Mercedes’ motor sport boss. When it was announced on Thursday that, after 22 years, 60-year-old Haug will not be with the German marque in 2013, some sensed the hand of Mercedes’ new non-executive chairman, triple world champion and Austrian great Lauda. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,1030,34,92,598,242],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17390,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17389\/revisions\/17390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}