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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff will go down in F1 history as arguably one of the most successful team principals. He spearheaded an unprecedented eight-year winning streak for his team.
He's also been the face of the most dominant era in F1, as from 2014 to 2020, he could do no wrong and cruised to the title every year. In 2021 as well, even though the season ended in heartbreak, the team did set a record of eight consecutive titles.
Since 2022, however, one can almost say that the Mercedes boss has lost his smile. Success has eluded the German team, and that has left Toto Wolff with a very serious demeanor.
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We're into the third winless season for Mercedes, and if we hear Toto Wolff's tone, it seems as if he has already thrown the towel for 2026 as well. With Lewis Hamilton also calling time on his association with the team, there is a glaring question that one should ask. Is Toto Wolff the right man to lead the Mercedes revival?
When we question this, we know he's a part owner of the team and hence cannot be fired. However, there could be a scenario where he steps down from the role of team principal and continues to be the CEO of the team.
In this feature, we will question whether Toto Wolff is the right man to lead the Mercedes revival because the actions and the turn of events of the last few years indicate otherwise.
Third year of cluelessness
The first key aspect is the fact that Mercedes is in the third year of these regulations and still has no clue on how to develop the car. The new regulations led to the introduction of the ground effect era in F1, but it also exposed the team's aerodynamic unit.
The zero sidepod concept failed big time, and the team continued to struggle with a lack of understanding of the car. That issue trickled over to 2023 as Mercedes brought out the white flag in the very first race and worked on a car concept revamp.
Now we're in 2024, and the team still seems to have zero clue about how the car behaves. Conditions that are just a few degrees warmer or colder put the car out of its working window and leave the drivers vulnerable.
This is the third year of the regulations and at the moment, the team has the fourth fastest car on the grid. Where is the silver lining? When is the revival happening? Unfortunately, it looks like it just isn't.
Lack of concrete future plans
The 2024 F1 season has featured a very public pursuit of Max Verstappen from Toto Wolff. The Austrian has often termed Verstappen as the best driver on the grid and openly claimed that there is a seat open at Mercedes for him.
Making such claims at a time when the Red Bull-Verstappen relationship was on shaky ground is fine, but continuing to do it beyond that is troublesome.
Bith the team and Toto Wolff were blindsided by Lewis Hamilton's decision to join Ferrari. However, what has come out of all this is that there is a lack of concrete future plans.
On one side, Wolff wants to see how Kimi Antonelli performs. On the other side, he wants to bring Verstappen to the team. Amongst all of it, the neglected one appears to be George Russell, whose contract expires next season.
What is Wolff's vision of Mercedes for the future? Does he even have any? At this moment, there are far too many conflicting actions from the Austrian.
Resource drain
If we take a look at this decade, when was the last time Mercedes had a star signing? When was the last time Toto Wolff brought some impressive talent to the team? When was the last time we heard a Red Bull key personnel making his way to Brackley?
On the contrary, we've heard about far too many names that have left the team. Several key members have either taken a step away by themselves or have been poached.
Simone Resta is one of the recent names who have made their way to Mercedes, and he is an impressive signing. But can he single-handedly change the fortunes of the German team? The answer is probably not.
Before the German team became a dominant force in 2014, Mercedes poached multiple key personnel from rivals to build a super team for several years. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened this time around, and it does appear that Toto Wolff has not aggressively gone after anyone either.
There has been resource depletion at Mercedes in the last few seasons. Surprisingly, Wolff has not tried to do something to alleviate that.
Hasn't moved on from AD2021
In a recently released quote from Toto Wolff about Michael Masi, the Austrian had a rather vitriolic rant against the former race director. Choice words were used to describe Masi, which was maybe not the best use of language from Wolff.
There is, however, a bigger takeaway in all of this that should not be ignored: Mercedes too had a role to play in the debacle in the Abu Dhabi 2021 debacle.
Everyone remembers the final call made by Masi that went against Mercedes, but there were numerous calls that went against Red Bull as well. Additionally, if one goes back and watches the race, audio of Toto Wolff, Jonathan Wheatley, and Christian Horner shouting orders at Masi was omnipresent throughout the race.
Was Toto Wolff the architect of Mercedes' success?
Arguably the biggest question mark on Toto Wolff right now is whether he was the architect of the team's dominance. Lest we forget, Wolff joined the German team in 2013 and before that, the squad was led by none other than Ross Brawn, who worked on building the team with Michael Schumacher.
The entire bulk hiring process, the decision to work on the power unit, and the process of enticing Lewis Hamilton was through Brawn. While Toto Wolff did lead the team admirably from 2014 onwards after Brawn stepped aside, the foundation was already in place and all that was left to do was consolidation.
When it comes to building a squad from the ground, how much of the success can be attributed to Toto Wolff? This is a big question and it's hard to have a definitive answer, but it does raise questions about how much experience the Austrian actually has in building a team.
