Toto Wolff and Mercedes are going through a difficult period in Formula 1, with his team only achieving one victory last season. Before that, the German manufacturer was the dominant team, winning multiple drivers' and contractors' titles between 2014-2021. This year, along with last year, Mercedes seem to be facing a difficult season, and Wolff has said that he misses Niki Lauda in these difficult times.
Lost without Lauda
In 2012, Lauda joined Mercedes, and the three-time world champion managed to convince Lewis Hamilton, among others, to come to Mercedes, and we all know what a success that turned out to be. In 2019, Lauda passed away, and since his death, the German racing team has been driving with one red star on the car in memory of Niki Lauda.
Wolff spoke to Formula1.com and said that the three-time world champion is missed in these difficult times. "I’m having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned [things], and the two of us worked well together in that sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the results," Wolff said.
Wolff on goals in 2023
2023, like 2022, started disappointingly for Wolff's team. Mercedes has indicated they will change the concept of the W14 as a result, which the team want to use to solve the problems with the car. The Austrian tells Formula1.com about the goals for the rest of the season.
"The goals: I’d like to win every race, but that’s not realistic. The goals are that, based on the understanding we have now, over the next iterations of updates and learning, we can shave off a lot of performance deficit, because now we know and now we have all taken a decision in which direction to go."
The loss of Lauda is tremendous. In any sport to loose a mentor of the status of Lauda is almost unbearable. Just look what happened to Mike Tyson after the passing of Gus D'Amato. Toto needs to put on his big boy pants and sort the team out. Maybe he needs to look for new blood in the managing team to bring in new ideas.
Wolff is talking about oversimplification in how he and Niki tackled things. In that sense, i say: you have cost cap budget, right? Normally, it has to be carefully balanced and divided between upgrading a car during the season, and creating a new car for the following season. Normally. But what if you want to be radical? What if, like Mercs, you conclude you have it wrong, it is a wrong philosophy? Then i would probably say, we scratch developing this car, and put all the resources on the new car, you of course, start to work hard on it, to have it ready early, by, let's say Silverstone. Basically you have a new car mid-season, which in the initial plan it would have been the car for next season. But now you have the car early, because you didn't have to divide resources, you went all in for the new concept. With this new car you finish the 2nd part of 2023, and should also be the core of the 2024 challenger. Problem is, the risk is huge, it is double actually. If you also f* up this car, 2024 could also be compromised, just like 2023.
Yeah totally agree with you. Maybe he's still used to have almost unlimited budget, who knows. I wouldn't pretend that their concept is wrong. Maybe it would be the greatest car ever by putting lots of financial resources, as it used to be the case in the past. I know this from my job. Everytime you come up with something "revolutionary", it looks good on paper. But the reality is mostly a bit different. Time and financial resources are then needed to understand the discrepancies between theory and reality. Now, having a limited budget, wind tunnel, CFD and testing time, I doubt it was a good idea to go the path they went. And to repeat the same mistake for 2023 again, it's beyond me. ?♂️
In the second half of the season the car was much better. I'm sure that's why they stuck with it, believing if they improved a lot through 2022, they could make the same car better for 2023. That was a logical move at the time, much like Ferrari thought they were headed in the right direction.
Yeah makes sense. On the other hand, RB didn't bring lots of updates last season, especially in the second half season, and focused more on this seasons car. Certainly RB feared the additional 10% aero cut they got. This, along with RB bugging at Interlagos, made Mercedes think they decreased the gap to RB. It's always easy to judge afterwards, you're right. After all I would have probably done the same thing in Toto's place.
It all went downhill after Niki passed, the guy was a genius.
If you need to know about Niki Lauda, find the episode of a show called Mayday that featured a crash by Lauda air. I've never seen a man that dedicated, that he forced his way into the investigation that was aiming to blame the pilots (they do this a lot). He found a major manufacturing problem, cleared his and his people's names, and made air travel safer for everyone on the planet. That's the kind of man he was. He was a big loss, not just to Mercedes but to the world. It's understandable Toto is somewhat lost without him.
I saw that documentary quite some time ago. Great you pointed this out. I advise everyone to watch this episode of Mayday. It should be available on youtube. I used to watch F1 races on the German TV station RTL in the past. Niki was co-commentator. He could be very dry and "straight in your face" sometimes, absolutely honest, like Marko can be at times. But to me, it was totally justified. He told once that he had a discussion with HAM, somewhere in the middle of the season 2013. Niki said something similar to: "I asked him (HAM) if he wants to be F1 champion again. He answered yes of course. I then told him in a serious way that he needs to work harder, harder training, way less red carpet events, no more friends in the garage and get the dog out of here! That's how you will win championships again. He HAM executed my advice from the next race on". Niki was so right, and the rest is history ?
Less politics and more "keep your head down and get to work"?
I was about to write a similar comment. I'm pretty sure it's what Lauda would have said.
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