Ross Brawn insists he remains in charge at Mercedes despite upheaval rumours

A defiant Ross Brawn has declared that "I'm in charge" at Mercedes despite speculation that he could be set to be forced out of the team.

Brawn also admitted that Mercedes have indeed made an approach to Lowe as they seek to bolster an already formidable engineering roster for the long term. He said the situation had arisen because he wanted to see how the team's recent management and technical reshuffle would pan out before himself making a long-term commitment. Even so, Brawn added that he hoped to remain in charge for a "very long time". Besides Lauda and Wolff, Mercedes have hired the likes of Bob Bell, Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis - each of whom has served as a Technical Director elsewhere - in the last couple of years. Heading in the other direction, meanwhile, was Norberg Haug who left his position as head of Mercedes-Benz motorsport - the role now occupied by Wolff - in December. The influx has yet to be reflected in on-track success, however. Since Mercedes acquired the team ahead of the 2010 season, they have won just one race - Nico Rosberg's victory in last year's Chinese Grand Prix. Sky Sports F1 analyst Johnny Herbert was an interested observer at Brackley having worked with Brawn at Benetton and driven for Jaguar the season before Lauda was appointed team manager. Speaking to Sky Sports News, the three-times grand prix winner said he was sceptical that Mercedes' new management could work smoothly together. "Things have had to move this team in a position where they can fight for race wins consistently," Herbert said. "We know about Niki Lauda who has come in - I knew about him many years ago when I was racing at Jaguar and there was a lot of unfortunate political mess that was going on there, with different people from Germany, from America and then Niki Lauda as well. "But he's coming in there with a wealth of experience - a three-times World Champion - and he's really going to have to work with the guys that are here. "Ross Brawn - we know how successful he's been with Ferrari and Michael Schumacher and Benetton before that. But lately it hasn't been working out. "We're going to see how, together, those guys can get a situation of saying, 'Well I'm going to stay to make the team work' or 'I'm going to go'. "Ross has said he's going to stay, Niki's here for sure, Toto's just joined. It's something that'll be interesting to watch - how that continues and if there is a power struggle. That seems to be going on at the moment."