{"id":17438,"date":"2012-12-19T07:04:42","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T12:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=17438"},"modified":"2012-12-19T07:04:42","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T12:04:42","slug":"haug-admits-mercedes-defeats-led-to-f1-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/haug-admits-mercedes-defeats-led-to-f1-departure\/","title":{"rendered":"Haug admits Mercedes defeats led to F1 departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norbert Haug has admitted he is stepping down due to Mercedes’ lack of success as a works team since 2010.<\/p>\n

\"Norbert-Haug\"But in an interview with Germany’s Bild daily, he denied reports he is being made a scapegoat.<\/p>\n

“No, I’m not,” said Haug, who served as the German marque’s motor sport vice president for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

“If I had nothing to do with our failures in the last three years, then I would have nothing to do with our victory in China this year,” said the 60-year-old, “and I wouldn’t like that.”<\/p>\n

But why has Haug been axed, and not the Brackley based team’s British principal, Ross Brawn?<\/p>\n

“Because over 22 years I have borne the overall responsibility for motor sport at Mercedes, not Ross Brawn.\u00a0 I am ultimately his superior,” he insisted.<\/p>\n

Haug said he accepts that he must take the responsibility.<\/p>\n

“The basis of our car was good, but the development was poor to very poor,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

Haug denied rumours he is actually quitting for health reasons.<\/p>\n

“Thank god not,” the German insisted.\u00a0 “Almost three years ago to the day I had thyroid surgery, but since then I’m doing very well.\u00a0 I’m totally healthy,” he added.<\/p>\n

He said he doesn’t know if his job will now be split into two roles — DTM and F1.<\/p>\n

“I have no information.\u00a0 Maybe there is a very capable professional who can do much more than I can,” said Haug.<\/p>\n

He played down suggestions ex-drivers like Michael and Ralf Schumacher, or Mika Hakkinen, can fill his shoes.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, I don’t think they were born to be in the office,” laughed Haug.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norbert Haug has admitted he is stepping down due to Mercedes’ lack of success as a works team since 2010. But in an interview with Germany’s Bild daily, he denied reports he is being made a scapegoat. “No, I’m not,” said Haug, who served as the German marque’s motor sport vice president for more than …<\/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":[2120,3],"tags":[5262,5340,34,242,35],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17438"}],"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=17438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17439,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17438\/revisions\/17439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}