Why Allison did not want to become "an old embarrassment" to Mercedes

"It had to be a role in which I could focus on longer wavelength stuff than that, looking at what challenges the entire company might face and how we might best equip ourselves technically to ensure we are well set to face them.

"It really is what it is described as. It is not an operational role, that is the preserve of a technical director, the correct preserve of a technical director."

Allison is hopeful that part of his remit is to look at projects beyond F1, although he will still be in the background of the team's F1 aims.

As he describes it, it is "putting my shoulder to the wheel to help the team be set fair with its technical resources on the longer-term basis for the sort of things that may arrive with us three, five, 10 years from now.

"Stuff which is always in the back of your minds when you are constructing a championship result or preparing for the following year, but which is nearly always displaced by the urgency of the event that tends to fill your inbox as days roll on." It is testimony to the bond that has developed between Wolff and Allison, with the former describing the latter as "my technical twin brother", that the Austrian had no intention of letting the Briton leave.

There is no doubt Allison found a degree of comfort in working for Mercedes he acknowledges helped him through the lowest ebb of his life with the passing of his wife Rebecca in March 2016, which hastened his departure as TD from Ferrari later that year to spend more time with his family.

Asked whether the last few years had been the most enjoyable time in his career, Allison replied: "Purely professionally, head and shoulders more fun than anything else that has happened to me.

"I think it is common knowledge that the tragedy in my personal life, losing my wife, has meant the overall experience of being alive has had some difficulties attached to it in the last five years.

"But from a professional point of view, I have been very lucky to find a home in this team and be welcomed into it as I have been."

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