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14 Years Before Fracturing His Arm, Toto Wolff’s Broken Vertebra Led Him to the Love of His Life

Sabyasachi Biswas
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14 Years Before Fracturing His Arm, Toto Wolff’s Broken Vertebra Led Him to the Love of His Life

Toto Wolff has recently injured his arm during the ongoing summer break. This has come to everyone’s notice after his wife Susie Wolff put out a post regarding this. This is not the first time, however, that Wolff has injured himself. 14 years ago, the Mercedes boss broke his vertebra and that ended up completely changing his life, in a very positive way. It helped him come across his wife, Susie.

Toto and Susie Wolff have been together since 2011 and they both share a great love for racing, endlessly. So much so that they involved their son Jack in karting. Interestingly, in a recent update, Susie Wolff herself raced against her son while karting.

Admittedly, Susie has always supported his husband, Toto, both personally as well as professionally. Netflix’s Drive to Survive captured how important a role Susie played in his life, leading to his rise to the top as a Mercedes team principal. Weirdly, there’s a chance none of this could have taken place had Wolff not broken his Vertebra back in the day.

How did Toto Wolff break his vertebra?

Back in 2009, Wolff wanted to prove himself in the world of racing as a driver once again. In fact, he went on to successfully beat the lap record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife track. It was a dangerous circuit, which also saw the great Niki Lauda suffer a horrific crash back in the day.

As he set out to beat the lap record in his Porsche 911 RSR, he sensed that his tires were giving up. Within just a few moments, Wolff’s right rear burst, sending his car into the guardrail at a speed of 179 miles per hour. Following the accident, it was found that the Austrian suffered multiple concussions and a broken vertebra.

After the accident, Susie Wolff who was racing for Mercedes in the German touring car championship was told by her team to call the 51-year-old and wish him well on their behalf. Notably, she had seen Toto once or twice in the paddock, but never spoken to him.

The former driver then called Wolff up for a supposedly 10-minute conversation. However, in the end, according to The New Yorker, the call lasted for an hour. This was enough to sow the seed of their relationship, as they hit things off immediately.

Toto and Susie Wolff’s union story

Susie called Toto Wolff at a time when the latter had just gotten separated from his first wife. Hence many believe that this has been a great time for them to spend time together.

Eventually, they started dating and got married in Capri in 2011. They are now regarded as one of the most influential couples in motorsport. Their companionship to each other means so much that once Toto Wolff recalled during an interview with Damon Hill that he needed to go for Susie Wolff as she was the only one who could understand him.

Post Edited By:Somin Bhattacharjee

About the author

Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas

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Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.

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