F1 News
Brundle on Mercedes and Wolff's success: “We should celebrate excellence”
- GPblog.com
Mercedes’s well-established and continued dominance in Formula 1 needs no mention anymore, as Sky Sports analyst and expert Martin Brundle also knows. However, he does have a theory that explains Mercedes' success, and it begins with the figure of Toto Wolff.
Brundle focuses on the combination of businessman and racer that makes Toto Wolff so successful. Brundle calls him the "enterprising racing driver" and explains this as follows: “He just knows something about business and money.”
Brundle continued: "What Toto has done is simply unbelievable. He has taken what he has taken over from Ross and the gang to an even higher level. If that could be transferred to other industries, it would be unbelievable."
At the same time, Brundle is also aware of the more questionable sides of Wolff's business dealings on the grid. For example, Brundle addresses the criticism of Wolff for his wide-spread influence on other teams and drivers in the paddock. Brundle: "Toto is in an extreme form. I mean, you can only be impressed by what he's done. … I fully understand that if you've been successful for a few years and as an entrepreneur I have interests in certain indirect relationships with players in sport - that's annoying."
Superiority part of the sport
However, Brundle does not seem to find the criticism of Mercedes' dominance very significant. He says, quoted by Formel1.de: "We should celebrate your excellence, right? I've never seen a car that sticks to the road like this. … In our sport we have to remember that there were times when Williams, McLaren, Ferrari, Benetton dominated - Red Bull too, of course."