Toto Wolff Doesn’t Have To “Punch Himself in the Nose” and Is Pardoned for Mercedes’ Sins

Mercedes had a challenging weekend at the Albert Park circuit since both of its drivers failed to finish the race. While Lewis Hamilton got a DNF on lap 17 because of engine issues, George Russell crashed on the penultimate lap as he tried to chase Fernando Alonso for P6. Given these disappointing outcomes, Toto Wolff acknowledged that he would want to “punch himself in the nose”. However, following Wolff’s remarks, former driver David Coulthard begged to differ, citing that Wolff doesn’t need to solely take all the responsibility.

During the Formula for Success podcast, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan talked about Toto Wolff’s reaction to the team’s misfortunes and his role within the larger team structure. Coulthard said, “I understand he must be very frustrated. But you know as a team principal, as a shareholder, you get the funds in place, you get the people in place, but you are not actually directly responsible.”

The former Red Bull driver feels that Wolff can’t hold himself “solely responsible” for the reliability issues and the performance deficit of the W15. While his role is to lead the team, Coulthard thinks that the entire team made mistakes in Melbourne, not just the Austrian boss.

Jordan later echoed Coulthard’s sentiment but also gave some explanation as to why Wolff would want to own up this failure, on his shoulders.

Jordan said, “Toto is in a difficult space at the moment. [This is] because he’s such a massive professional and it will have hurt him for sure what happened in Australia. He will want to forget that as soon as possible and he will bounce back and make no mistake.”

In addition, Jordan claimed that Wolff would have been more affected by Mercedes’ devastating defeat to Ferrari and McLaren than by their double DNF.

Toto Wolff responds to the idea of hiring a ‘design guru’ amidst the tumultuous start to the season

Mercedes’s current campaign has got off to a disappointing start. After earning a points finish in the first two races, the Silver Arrows suffered a double DNF at the Australian GP. Thus, looking at the difficulty of exploiting the full potential of the W15, many suggested Mercedes to hire a design guru.

Earlier, the team had already performed a technical reshuffle when they brought James Allison back as the team’s technical director. However, despite this, when Wolff was asked in the post-race media session at Melbourne whether Mercedes would hire a potential design guru to restructure their team further, he gave an interesting response.

The 52-year-old said, “So, you have the first idea of design guru? I think you always need to look at ourselves like I need to look at myself, what is it? Why is it that we can’t get there?” 

Subsequently, Wolff noted that even with all the data, it still takes human labor to complete the job at hand. In light of this, Wolff asserted that he is neither stopping nor he is sitting ideal and dwelling. Instead, the Austrian is considering more ways to motivate the team.