Mercedes bolster their technical staff with the arrivals of Mark Ellis and Giles Wood

Mercedes: Key engineering appointments

The Silver Arrow might be losing Team Principal Ross Brawn, who departs at the end of the year, but the team's efforts to bolster their technical knowhow elsewhere are clearly continuing unabated.

Ellis will join the team as Performance Director, with Wood taking up the position of Chief Engineer, Simulation and Development. Both will start work in June 2014.

Earlier this year, Mercedes recruited former McLaren Technical Director Paddy Lowe, who joined as Executive Director (Technical) and will replace Brawn at the helm next season alongside the team's commercial boss Toto Wolff.

Prior to that, the Brackley team hired big names like Bob Bell (Technical Director), Aldo Costa (Engineering Director) and Geoff Willis (Technology Director) as they sought to get back to winning ways.

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg won a total of three races last season, helping the team to second place in the Constructors' Championship. However, they have long targeted the 2014 season - when F1 undergoes a major technical shake-up - for a title bid.

Red Bull have, of course, had a stranglehold on the World Championship for the last four seasons and are already losing aerodynamics chief Peter Prodromou, who is set to rejoin McLaren in 2015.

In a statement, Mercedes said the arrival of Ellis and Wood "will further strengthen the team's technical organisation, particularly in the fields of simulation and vehicle dynamics".