The McLaren statement was more about announcing Goss' promotion than it was a farewell to Lowe - his only mention came at the end of the press release, and read simply: “Paddy [Lowe] will be performing a different role within McLaren until the end of the year. He's been a good and successful F1 Technical Director, and we wish him well when he embarks on a fresh challenge in 2014."

And from the looks of things, Lowe appears to have done the decent thing when it came to giving McLaren notice of his intention to move on once his contract expired. Part of the McLaren release included a thumbnail sketch of Goss' CV, and one of the elements listed was the recent cars Goss had worked on.

McLaren are known to follow an alternation pattern with their car designs, swapping responsibility from year to year. As a rule of thumb, Goss designed odd-numbered McLarens in even-numbered years. But not this year - Goss has had responsibility for back-to-back cars.

I may be reading far too much into this, but it looks to me like Lowe told McLaren he was looking elsewhere back when negotiations to join Toto Wolff at Williams first got underway. 

It's the decent thing to do, as the loss of Lowe is a blow to the team. As Jonathan Noble points out in Autosport, when Lewis announced he was leaving McLaren last year, Jenson said that the loss of a teammate was one thing, but that the loss of Lowe would be a disappointment.

Aside from the practicalities of losing a man of Lowe's skill and experience, there's also the psychological blow to a factory that has just said goodbye to a star driver and long-time member of the Woking family. The fact that Goss has been with McLaren for 23 years is a bonus in that regard - a familiar face in charge will help smooth the transition.

But it's not going to be all plain sailing at Mercedes, either. Brackley now houses about 94 different people who have been technical directors at one time or another, and no matter how often Ross Brawn says it's not a problem because everyone has a clearly defined role, it's still not easy to see how adding Lowe (and Wolff, and Lauda) to the mix isn't going to complicate matters somewhat.

Where does the phrase 'too many chiefs, not enough Indians' fall in the parameters of political correctness? Is there a better, more modern way to say that sometimes simplest is best? A direct chain of command and accountability has been proven to win wars, and I can't imagine it would be the worst strategy in motor-racing.

My instinct is that those who foresee a rapid reduction in senior Brackley personnel in the not too distant future are right, although I wouldn't put any money on specific names staying or going. Not yet, anyway - let's see what happens after the first four races.

Mercedes have not been available for comment since the McLaren press release was issued.