Why I personally think that Mercedes is doing a great job by not poaching too much "outside talents" from other teams and is possibly more focused on developing the new fresh talents and preparing for an early generational turnover
I'm not saying poaching is entirely bad but sometimes poaching employees from other companies (esp long term ones) came with monetary or other beneficial things that come with the offer. As an employee, of course you'd take it but that doesn't necessarily mean that the concerned employee actually has the motivation or the commitment to work there. And letting new people suddenly jump up the corporate ladder when they're poached, often doesn't work well with the employees who've worked there before because aside from new beneficial knowledge the new employee brought, they will also bring different work ethics to the team and they'll also struggle a bit to get a grip on the company's goals, habits and environment as they went there probably for other benefits, and if they continue to fail to adapt, that'll be a problem for their work too and how they handle everything.
But when you let employees climb up the hierarchial corporate ladder naturally (e.g. Shov from being a race engineer to trackside engineering director), by the time they're at the upper level management, they're going to have that grip that knows where the company's direction and goal is heading. They know what they're doing and what they're going to do. They know the culture. They know how they must act. And their loyalty grows as the team progresses each year. That loyalty will become their work drive and make them sometimes the better employees. Because at work, you can't only have the knowledge but you have to have the commitment, to be in the same direction as the company's goals and the loyalty.
If we're talking about ethics, it is ethical and fine to poach employees but IMO, poaching too much of an upper level management employee (that is a bunch of old guys too) is definitely not a good thing because you're kinda not letting the old ones progress naturally up the corporate ladders. And these things are short-term too like poaching is fine but if you don't invest in your current and fresh talents in your employee roster, then it'll always be for a short time. Employee A from Company B comes to Company A, is 56, leads the team for 4 years, builds work ethics and habits, retires. Hired employee B from Company C, is 49, has a different vision and leadership than employee A, team work ethics change, need time to adapt to the new work ethics, employee A retires, is replaced again with employee C with a new work ethics and diff commitments, adapt again, retires again, hire again anddddd the hellish cycle goes on.
While allowing fresher talents to grow and learn from the current upper level management, allows new innovations and ideas. It's not always about recruitment in HR, it's also about retaining employees. Employees that naturally went up the corporate ladder, imo, will always somehow be the better employee as they will always have the grip, commitment and investment on the company's direction in the present or future