Mercedes has announced two key signings to its engineering team, both moving to Brackley from Milton Keynes.

Mark Ellis, formerly Chief Engineer, Vehicle Dynamics at Red Bull will join Mercedes as Performance Director in June 2014, while Giles Wood will take up the position of Chief Engineer, Simulation and Development at the same time.

According to the German team the two newly created roles, the first appointments since Paddy Lowe took charge as Executive Director, Technical, will "further strengthen the team's technical organisation, particularly in the fields of simulation and vehicle dynamics.

Ellis is a key signing for the Brackley squad. Starting off in Touring Cars and the WRC, he worked with Williams Renault on its Touring Car project in 1995. In 2000 he joined BAR from Prodrive filling the role of Head of Mechanical Design.

In 2001 he joined Jaguar as Chief Racing Engineer before returning to BAR the following year as Chief Test Engineer. He remained at Brackley as the team morphed into Honda, taking the role of Chief Engineer.

Between 2007 and 2008 he worked with the ill-fated Super Aguri before joining Red Bull as Head of Vehicle Performance in 2009. A year later he assumed the role of Chief Engineer, Vehicle Dynamics with the Austrian outfit.