Mercedes confident without Brawn

Ross Brawn (L)

Ross Brawn confirmed on Thursday morning that he is to step down as team principal, handing over the running of the Mercedes F1 outfit for the start of the new era of regulations from 2014.

Mercedes' chairman of the board of management Dieter Zetsche believes that Wolff and Lowe will be able to push the outfit on in its bid to win the world championship.

"Last winter, we restructured the management of our Formula 1 activities, with the support of Niki Lauda," he said.

"The first step was to convince Toto Wolff to join us to run our Mercedes-Benz motorsport activities and our Formula 1 company. The second step was the recruitment of Paddy Lowe during 2013.

"This gave us a clear succession plan for the time when Ross decided to step down from his current role, and that time has now come.

"I have every confidence that Toto and Paddy will build on Ross's good work and that they possess exactly the balance of skills required to lead our team to world championship success."

Zetsche also paid tribute to the efforts Brawn had made to turn Mercedes into its current competitive force.

"I would like to personally thank Ross for the calm authority with which he has led our works team since 2010, for his crucial contribution to our team's development and also for the undoubted share he will have in our future success," he explained.

"It has been a pleasure working with him over the past four years and I extend all my very best wishes to him for the future."