Toto Wolff Avoids Talking About Wins: “Maybe It’s Just a Superstition”

Toto Wolff is one of the most successful F1 team principals of all time, having guided Mercedes to eight Constructors’ championship wins since joining in 2013. Although he is used to victories, he still tries his best not to think about them. Wolff learned the same the hard way.

In the Performance People podcast, Wolff spoke about ‘not counting his chickens before they hatched’. The host, Georgina Jane Ainslie, asked him why, to which Wolff replied, “It’s a life lesson… You’ve got to keep things in you. Not talk too much about what could be or what couldn’t be.” 

Ainslie pressed for a better answer and Wolff said, “Maybe it’s just a superstition.” Wolff recounted an incident where, with five laps remaining in a race and one of his cars in the lead, he began thinking about who to send up on the podium to celebrate with his winning driver.

Then, disaster struck — a DNF took them out of the race. “You’re not sending anyone to the podium, because you’ve just lost,” the Austrian added. Whenever Wolff finds himself thinking about a potential victory, he reminds himself of past situations where similar thoughts had cost him.

Visualization can be powerful — Wolff

Wolff knows what it takes to run one of the biggest and most successful sports teams in recent times. He also had Lewis Hamilton — a mega athlete — on his team, so managing expectations could not have been stress-free.

When asked if he believes in visualization, Wolff said yes. “I think setting objectives is the single most important thing in your life… But you need to be very humble about it. It can come [back] otherwise.” 

| Toto Wolff: “Lewis deserves better from us. We all need to do the upmost in order to provide him with a machine that is able to fight for the front positions. The guy is the best driver in the world and he is just not having the machine & the equipment underneath him”

— Toto Wolff News (@totowolffnews) April 24, 2022

It’s a mantra Wolff has developed throughout his career, one that has helped him sustain his success. He is currently focused on getting Mercedes out of the slump that began in 2022. Once a championship-winning team, the Silver Arrows were reduced to midfield contenders.

However, Wolff and the Brackley-based squad worked tirelessly to return to form in 2024, achieving three wins so far this season. Still, as Wolff told Ainslie, he won’t consider this a true success until he reaches his ultimate goal — winning the World championship again.