He already has a minor stake in the Williams Formula 1 racing team. He’s nurtured a team that has unfurled world champion drivers on the modern grid of the fastest form of motor racing that there is: Formula 1! Think Nico Rosberg in 2016 and don’t forget Lewis Hamilton, 2014, 2015, and from 2017-2020. From the onset of 2014 until 2021, he helped Mercedes achieve an unprecedented eight Constructor world titles.
In such time, Mercedes’ next-to-faultless reign ensured that the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull, then-their closest competitors became banal participants in Formula 1, not actual challengers.
And he’s pretty much done all of this showcasing a lion-hearted appetite for success. Toto Wolff, it could be said, has seen it all in Formula 1.
And in that regard, it’s also important to suggest that while he has seen kingly days in the past where Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes became, quite clearly, the most feared alliance of sorts in F1, he’s also seeing some very difficult days, isn’t it?
From the tectonic highs of Formula 1 back in 2020 to the unquestionably challenging times in the current, i.e., the 2022 Formula 1 season, Toto Wolff isn’t evidencing the silky comfort that stemmed from that winning feeling.
The car that Mercedes have for the ongoing championship, it isn’t too hard to say, is anything but a world beating machine. It’s not like the past challengers that were, quite simply, in a league of their own.
Their main man or go-to driver, Lewis Hamilton is struggling for pace. The car, porpoising heavily one race after another, isn’t helping the cause one bit. And moreover, remarkably consistent that he may be, George Russell, who’s finished all his races inside top five (so far), is still very fresh and new to Mercedes.
Imagine the pressure, the plight of Toto Wolff?
Would he have had, at any point in time, thoughts about walking away from the sport given just how bad Mercedes are performing at the moment and given that quite literally, nothing is going their way? One’s also not sure if they can bounce back, and if so, then by when or when’s that earliest?
All of this and more has been playing on the minds of interviewers and media gazettes focusing on F1. But in a recent chat with the Austrian, finally there came some answers.
Here’s what Toto Wolff had to share ahead of the much-anticipated Miami Grand Prix, a first for everyone in and watching F1:
The problem is that I’m dead in the Maldives without what I’m doing here,” explained Wolff. “The activity in the team, developing the team, is what I really enjoy.”
He would not stop there; he’d continue to add what excites him most about the current conception of Formula 1.
Toto Wolff would further add:
“Formula 1 is booming. On the revenue side, things are going very well and this is what I actually want to do all my life. In that respect, the question hasn’t arisen until now to say: that’s it. It would be like a project manager or an employee saying: ‘I’ve done this now, I’ll go out with the best record and that’s it.’ But it doesn’t stop with me. It’s going on.”
That being said, given all his wisdom and work ethic, experience and ability to lift the team under pressure, if there’s ever a time where the lanky Austrian is needed by Mercedes (ever so desperately), then now is the time. Why? Well, after all, a Wolff always leads the pack well, right?