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“I don’t want a divorce”– How Toto Wolff solved his frosty relationship with Lewis Hamilton in a kitchen

Tanish Chachra
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"I don’t want a divorce"– How Toto Wolff solved his frosty relationship with Lewis Hamilton in a kitchen

Toto Wolff talks about how an honest conversation with Lewis Hamilton in his kitchen solved the frosty relationship between the two.

2016 was a tough year for Mercedes and Toto Wolff, even though they won both championships. The biggest issue was the threat to their team’s glory in future.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton were two lions in one cage, and it caused ego problems for Wolff to solve. Certainly, the conflicts between the two drivers anger the Mercedes boss, and eventually affected his relationship with both drivers.

Things cooled when Rosberg voluntary left Mercedes after his retirement. But Wolff had to solve things with his remaining driver, and he talks about how a conversation in the kitchen saved their relationship.

“We met at the Christmas party in my home in Oxfordshire that December, reluctantly,” Wolff recalls. “I said we need to decide whether we want to work together or not. ‘You want to win as a driver, I want to win as a team.”
“Sometimes our different agendas are going to lead to conflict and we need to decide whether we can cope with that situation. We were in my kitchen.”
“I said to him, and Susie didn’t much like this analogy, that even though Susie and I might disagree about something, it would never come into my mind to divorce.”
“‘And it’s the same with you Lewis,’ I said. ‘I don’t want a divorce. You’re the best driver. I want you in our car and we want to provide you with the best car.’”

Toto Wolff tells how crucial that conversation was

Wolff further reveals that the conversation with Hamilton went on for several hours, and once it got finished they came out to be one of the best mates ever. Moreover, according to Wolff, it reshaped Hamilton’s legacy in Mercedes.

“We kind of went into this discussion at loggerheads and then, after four or five hours in the kitchen, we found ourselves on a totally different level,” said Wolff.
“A purely business related relationship had become a personal relationship. He’s a friend. Doesn’t mean we don’t argue anymore but now, Lewis’s success is the team’s success, and the team’s success is Lewis’s success.”

Also read: George Russell admits Mercedes is currently losing out to Red Bull and Ferrari

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra

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Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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