Mercedes camp for the first time since Toto Wolff is seeing a massive shakedown in the team’s highest positions. The technical director Mike Elliott could soon see the axe after bringing out two underwhelming cars under his charge.
Elliott’s predecessor James Allison is reportedly brought back. Though it was Wolff’s plan only to elevate Allison to the CTO role, and eventually, he traded his operations to the INEOS UK’s sailing team, and now his former aide is coming back with ideas to rescue the team from their predicament.
Therefore, it’s only a dent to Wolff’s succession plans, which Nico Rosberg thinks is something the former manages to handle seamlessly. Despite backtracking to his former technical director, Rosberg thinks it’s more than what meets the eye.
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Nico Rosberg thinks Toto Wolff had his duties sorted
Reshuffling the Mercedes leadership was Wolff’s idea. For a long time, Elliott has been considered a brilliant engineer, and on paper, it looks like a worthy promotion to both Allison and Elliott. The problem at Mercedes is far larger than people being in charge, claims Rosberg.
“Well, one of Toto’s greatest strengths is the succession planning,” said Rosberg to SkySports while citing Wolff easily replacing Paddy Lowe with Allison in 2017. “I think it’s just a general challenge that they haven’t really understood the new regulations entirely yet and what needs to be done to be fast.”
Nevertheless, whether the issue is rooted in Wolff’s decision or not, Mercedes anyway needs short-term fixes. The car is approximately a second slower than Red Bull at the moment, as per Lewis Hamilton’s admission, and they could be out beaten by their own customer Aston Martin this year.
Straight out of the championship
The mood at Mercedes’ garage is surely not a pleasant one. Right after the Bahrain Grand Prix, Wolff and Hamilton admitted that they were definitely not in this year’s championship fight.
On the other hand, George Russell was so impressed by Red Bull’s pace he even claimed that the Milton-Keynes-based outfit would go on to win every race in the season.
But they would be aiming at not falling down below the P3 spot they guarded last year. With Aston Martin’s sudden rise this year, they can see a further slip in their constructors’ position.
Meanwhile, several engineers are lobbying for scrapping this year altogether and utilizing maximum resources for the next year’s car. Therefore, how Mercedes will approach the rest of the season remains to be seen.
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