Mercedes boss Toto Wolff on how "he got the job" to lead the F1 team

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff recalled how he got himself in the position to lead the historic team. The Austrian billionaire was once the co-owner of the Williams F1 team before being approached by the big bosses of the Silver Arrows.

Wolff was brought in to assess why the Silver Arrows weren't up to par in 2012, a season that saw Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher as its drivers. The Austrian businessman was initially given a 30% stake in the historic team before increasing it to a 33% stake.

Ever since Wolff entered the team, the German giant saw a huge boom in success, most notably when the regulations changed at the end of 2013.

Wolff and Co. were able to extract maximum performance from the new turbo-hybrid engines introduced in 2014, making the German team the dominant force in the sport from 2014 to 2021.

Speaking about his journey, Wolff told Forbes:

"I became the team principal of Mercedes with a weird coincidence, because I was the co-owner of the Williams F1 team. It was going quite well, we won a race in 2012. Top management in Mercedes asked me why their team wasn't going that well. I tried to assess to the best of my ability and they offered me the job."

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George Russell is being patient with Mercedes' new upgrades

George Russell is not anticipating any significant improvement in the car's performance following the introduction of upgrades by Mercedes before the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.

Mercedes originally intended to upgrade the W14 before the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix. Unfortunately, the race was canceled due to flooding in northern Italy.

Nevertheless, they proceeded with their plans and implemented the scheduled upgrades for this weekend, even though the Monaco circuit isn't an ideal location for testing new parts.

Prior to the Monaco GP, Russell mentioned that the team would not draw extensive conclusions based on the car's performance on the street circuit. He also acknowledged the need to focus on improving their qualifying pace, as it has been a struggle for them this season.

The driver said, as per Motorsport.com:

"As we said yesterday, Monaco is a unique circuit. It's not the right place to evaluate updates or modifications. And we already knew this before the weekend. So we're almost forgetting about the updates. We'll deal with them next weekend."

With the team's future looking positive once again, it will be interesting to watch Russell and Co. tackle Monaco.