Lowe at Merc puzzles me – it doesn’t stack up, there’s no space for Lowe.
I see it as political manoeuvring by people wanting to exert pressure. A bit like telling an errant child to stop misbehaving or you’ll take their toys away. It smells like someone at Merc trying to exert pressure on the existing people – “conform to my changes or I’ll replace you, I’ve already got Lowe lined up to step into your shoes”.
It works for Lowe because he’s in a win-win, either more money at McLaren, or a free reign to purge and remodel Merc with Totto’s as his patron.
To be honest I suspect all parties are probably thinking the status quo will remain once the people at Merc fall in line. Of course the risk is that the threat is carried out. That would trigger succession at McLaren and radical changes at Merc. The recent moves to Ferrari are interesting because they’ve mopped up the people looking to move. So that the means McLaren would be left empty handed when the music stops.
The advantage to McLaren is that a mix of internal succession plus some bright young things from lower teams might bring a surge of new energy. They might even uncover the next Newey while Ferrari and Merc are hoarding well established people who are set in their ways.
Whatever happens, it’s fascinating to see the 3 teams scrambling to grab the limited engineering talent in their desperation to catch up with RB (McL & Fer), and to appease Stuttgart (Merc)