Despite Pressure to Become More Like Christian Horner, Toto Wolff Has Hired His Replacement

Toto Wolff and Christian Horner are two of the most successful team principals in the sport, and yet, they play quite different roles in their teams. With Mercedes underperforming as of late, Wolff has been under immense pressure to become more like Horner. However, despite all of this, as per a recent report by F1Maximaal.nl, Wolff has recently gone on to hire a deputy for himself.

Mercedes has fallen from grace ever since the 2022 season kicked off with new cars designed under new regulations. The team suffered major porpoising issues throughout the 2022 season, and even after solving it, the car turned out to be much slower compared to its rivals.

The Mercedes team principal also recently took up an academic job at Harvard. Wolff is set to teach an MBA course at the Harvard Business School. However, his decision to juggle two jobs at once has drawn widespread criticism, with fans claiming that it will only distract him from his main job at Mercedes.

Toto Wolff prepares his team for situations where he might not be present

The Silver Arrows have managed to win just one race from the start of last season. This major drop in performance has led to Wolff coming under major criticism. It has already been discussed widely how Horner is much more involved with the team and the factory compared to Toto Wolff.

On top of all of this, Wolff has now appointed a deputy team principal, Jerome d’Ambrosio, who would look after everything that he usually does during a race weekend in the case of his absence. d’Ambrosio joined the Brackley outfit in March and has already established himself as a core member of the team.

In an interview with Auto Hebdo, Wolff said, “When I’m absent during a race weekend, Jerome will replace me. It’s true that this has only happened three times in 11 years, but it’s a situation we have to be prepared for.” 

Wolff’s side hustle may be a cause for distraction

This decision has only led to more doubts regarding Wolff’s dedication to his job. It had already come under question when Wolff took up the second job of teaching at Harvard.

Wolff would serve as a guest lecturer alongside professor Anita Elberse, who had conducted a detailed case study on Wolff’s leadership qualities and how it had brought success to Mercedes. From next year, Wolff and Elberse would collaborate for a course meant for Harvard Students that goes by the name “Mercedes F1: Leading a High-Performance Team.”

It has been widely speculated that all of these things that Wolff is doing might distract him from his main job. The poor performance of the Mercedes is not really helping him either. Therefore, Wolff’s main target right now should be getting his team back on track.