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[Music] Foreign. [Music] Thank you very much for your time. It's an incredibly busy season of Formula One, but before we get into that, what I'd love to do is just remind our audience of your journey to where we sit here
Exclusive interview with Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff on his journey, mental health, philanthropy, and Formula One insights.
Key Takeaways
- Toto Wolff's journey to F1 leadership was shaped by late discovery of motorsport and diverse life experiences.
- Mental health openness is crucial, and Wolff uses his platform to encourage seeking help.
- Philanthropy and social responsibility are important aspects of Wolff's life outside racing.
- Formula One requires balancing intense sporting passion with complex business management.
- Team dynamics and nurturing young talent are key to Mercedes' continued success.
Summary
- Toto Wolff shares his journey from a non-motorsport-interested child in Vienna to CEO and team principal of Mercedes F1.
- He discusses his early sporting interests, including rugby and skiing, before discovering motor racing at 18.
- Wolff is multilingual, speaking five languages due to his mixed nationality family and schooling.
- He openly talks about his personal struggles with trauma and mental health, emphasizing the importance of seeking help.
- Wolff highlights his philanthropic work, including a foundation in memory of a late friend and support for refugees.
- He reflects on how his personal life and resilience help him manage the pressures of Formula One weekends.
- The interview touches on the balance between sport and business in Formula One and the role of team dynamics.
- Wolff comments on the entry of new manufacturers like Audi and Porsche into Formula One.
- He discusses Mercedes' approach to team management, partnership, and driver development.
- The conversation includes insights into the competitive landscape of F1, including Ferrari and Red Bull.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Early Life
- 02:37Childhood, Sports, and Language Skills
- 05:21Mental Health and Personal Challenges
- 07:53Philanthropy and Social Responsibility
- 10:14Balancing Private Life and F1 Pressure
- 16:54Early Business and Motorsport Investments
- 22:27Team Structure and New F1 Entrants
- 27:40Team Dynamics and Driver Management
- 34:29Competitive Landscape and Future Outlook
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
in the sunshine of Monte Carlo. It's quite a varied background, from you being a young boy back in Vienna, through getting into investments, getting into racing—we're both former ex-Formula Ford racers—to where you are as a major shareholder, CEO,
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and team principal of the Mercedes Formula One team. So let's go way back. The first passion for motorsport—where was that born out of, boys? Thank you, David, for having me. It's interesting. I remember that as a
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kid I had no interest in motor racing. There were these afternoons where Niki Lauda would—you would switch the TV on and Niki Lauda would race in Formula One, but it wasn't anything that I liked. Only when
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I was 18, I stumbled upon a racetrack and looked at a friend who raced in German Formula 3, which was big back in the day, and I completely fell in love with the cars, the drivers controlling or
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less controlling those machines. This is when I got the bug. You're a fantastic physical specimen, it has to be said, so you must have been into other sports at some point. What was your
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sport of passion before you fell in love with motor racing? I played rugby on a junior national level in Austria, and then the sports in school you would do in Austria were skiing, but nothing particularly, a little bit of track and
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field. But motor racing was the first one that I followed seriously. Obviously, back in the day, I wasn't as tall as I am now, and I had half the weight, probably, so it was easy to fit in
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a single-seater car. Does that tell me then you were more drawn towards academics than you were a sport, because you looked like you could be an athlete? That's why I'm a little bit surprised that you
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don't really seem to have found anything prior to falling in love with motor racing. Were you the sort of geek in the corner working on new investments? No, I wasn't either. It was quite odd because school
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in Vienna was already a social environment. In the French system, sports are not very pushed, neither my mother made me do anything. So it was only when I realized there was something I could
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do on my own that I followed it up with passion and intensity. We mentioned your mother, and you come from a mixed nationality family, so you are multilingual. If I believe the internet, you speak six languages, which is six
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more than I do. Very impressive. So that was obviously something that was instilled into you through your schooling and your family. It's five, thank goodness, and some speaking those languages would say, well, there is room for improvement. No, but
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it's five. I was lucky that I was raised in Vienna. German was the language we spoke with my friends, and Polish was my mother's language. In French, in the French school, we spoke French. So I was raised
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with those languages, which is extremely lucky. If a child, you learn it without any effort, so that was advantageous, maybe. Almost certainly a lot more sensitive a subject, but it's something you've spoken very openly about, and
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I really admire the fact that in success you've used your platform to talk about your own journey of mental health. You lost your father at a very young age, and I'm always fascinated when someone has made a
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journey to be in a position to show what hard work can deliver, that you make the choice to then share with others that you've had your own personal traumas and difficulties to overcome in that journey. Can you enlighten us a
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little bit more about that, please? I think everybody has a certain degree of trauma. Trauma is hard work but has a certain degree of—you've had events that were certainly hard to take, whether it was some kind
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of rejection, humiliation, or making you feel inadequate. All these happened to me when I was a kid and then a young adult. I believe that I'm trying to maybe overcompensate that, and so I'm torn. It's between this
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ambition that I have and, on the other side, my past and the vulnerability of the past. I believe that by me being outspoken, in the same way Lewis and also Nico have been, it's important to show that we are on TV
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and everything seems to be good for us, but the truth is you can't know what's behind the scenes, and all of us, to a certain degree, have suffered from these events in our childhood, and all of us suffer to a
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certain degree even whilst we live the Formula One dream. So be outspoken, seek help. You can't solve that with meat over beer, and that's why we want to be role models to encourage particularly men to go out and say, I need help. I also
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know that you are a good school friend who sadly passed away, Mary Bandit. You have a foundation, and I've been along to one of your fundraising events with your other school friends. The legacy that you continue to invest
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in there and encourage others to do to help others—this is a side that we don't see when we see Papi Toto at the Grand Prix track or angry Toto at the racetrack. But I think it's important, off
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the back of what you've just explained with your own mental health journey that you have, for some time before the sort of successes that you recognize for today, it's been investing in helping others. Yes, and it was super kind of you to come,
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because this is an important case where, in memory of a friend of mine who died very young of the same brain cancer as my friend, we are raising money to support children that are being raised in foster homes,
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ill children of all backgrounds, and the money goes for a good cause. Susie and I are working with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. We've been in Syria, we've been in Poland in a center where
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Ukrainians had found shelter, and there are many other activities that we support in the same way. My sister had a Syrian family who lived with them. We pay for accommodation of Ukrainian families in Austria, and I
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think we ought to do this rather than kind of living in our bubble and saying, well, I don't care what's happening out there in the world. We care, and it's a small degree of our income that we are
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trying to make people's lives a little bit easier. Do you feel that the way that, you know, we've got the sporting side and the Netflix generation where it's all a little bit Hollywood to entertain,
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that yin and the yang of your private journey, your private life, enables you to see the calm and the storm when the pressure's on during a Grand Prix weekend? Yes, because what I love is that
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my life has made me, unfortunately as a child—I wish everybody could be raised in a loving and caring, safe environment, which I wasn't—but it has created some resilience within me. When people ask me how difficult
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it is, how difficult is it on depression, former one, I always say this is nothing. It doesn't even move the needle in terms of toughness that I had to cope with in my life, but it's
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still something that I love. The passion is there, the energy is there. The ups and downs are between, you know, exuberance of winning a race and then, on the other side, being angry at losing. I think I've always worn my
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heart on my sleeve, and I'm showing those emotions, but it's just sports. It's just what I do as a for life, but it's not something that has a big effect. I'm not taking
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this home on Sunday night. You say it's just a sport, but of course Formula One is too big a business to be just a pure sport, and it's too much of a sport to be just pure business. So
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you're very lucky. I would say, and I consider myself lucky to be able to operate in this world where we get to manage both business income.
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little girl or you know a great grandparents the sport takes you on a journey and and of course in motor racing a lot of it is painful uh not all of its success but you've had an incredible level of success since you
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came into prominence with Mercedes you know it's not quite a decade of running the team but you've already achieved more than any other CEO or team principle in terms of World Championships how much of that was great vision for where Mercedes were going how
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much of that was just investor timing because your background is an investment give us a little bit of the the vision that you had in the beginning of that Journey um the the really interesting thing that uh that I I saw when I was already
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um when I already had my Venture Capital firm and when I did Investments is that I I was at the Grand Prix in Silverstone as a minority shareholder in Williams and I had the pleasure to have lunch with Carlos Slim
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and back in the day I think he was the richest person on the planet and Rubens barricello came in and Carlos Slim asked me whether he could have an autograph of rubensberry kale and I thought that's the wrong way around Ruben should ask
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Carlos Slim for an autograph and you realize that this sport triggers a lot of emotion today over all demographics young people and all the people women and men girls and boys and that's what we are so incredibly lucky to do it is
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it is sports um that that triggered his emotions it's business also so we can make a living out of it and I would say my journey started in investing in sports team much earlier than than Williams I was I had a joint
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venture with with AMG in um in running touring cars where we met where you raised in DTM I had a joint venture and a management structure with Mercedes before I supported Young Drivers and then it kind of grew and
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three years into into my investment career in Williams the CEO quit and I was asked from by Frank what do you think about running this together and I did it in 2012 um and it was a year of success we we
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won our last race in Barcelona and then the call for Mercedes came and um the invitation um to not only run it as a team principal and CEO but also to invest in the business and this is this has uh
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this is still there today I'm a we have three shareholders in the Mercedes team uh three equal shareholders and one of them uh Jim Radley from ineos is another one and then obviously Mercedes and so I have to pinch myself every single day
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that I could combine and I was able to combine my investment world with with formula one and if you would have told that to the 18 year old daughter I wouldn't have believed it and that's another thing that sets you apart from
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the other prominent team principles you are a shareholder you have skin in the game where with the greatest respect the others are representing the team as you know salaried employees there's been a few people you mentioned Frank Williams
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there was Ron Dennis there's been many people in the past that have been in a similar situation how do you think that changes the way you approach the weekend does that give you an advantage in some ways does it actually give you an added
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pressure because you're having to not only sort of oversee what is strategically being decided by the team on the day but you're also thinking longer term investment first of all I think there is some very capable team principles running running
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the teams today as as employees I don't think that certainly necessarily you need to be a co-shareholder or or a team principal being employed by the company so I have the greatest respect for everyone who does it well
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but when you look in the past you mentioned Frank Williams and and Ron Dennis these were the iconic the iconic team principles and they also owned a part of the business and when Mercedes and I came up with the concept that it
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needs to be managed at arm's lengths quick reactions you need to empower and only someone who owns the business is really empowered but it also comes with Grace responsibility today I am responsible for more than a thousand people in their families in my
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Motorsport head of Motorsports function also for another thousand in HPP and that responsibility is very clear to me and I know that this is not a project like a team principle is employed for three years or five or ten but it's
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something that I have to carry with me over all my life co-owning the team and that's certainly not a short-term project but the advantage is that I can that I can think in much longer Cycles a year that doesn't go well like this one
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is maybe in the grand scheme of things when I look back in the future not so relevant it's more what it what happens is three five and ten years and I need to together with my colleagues set the
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set this direction that well you mentioned there about your responsibility to a couple of thousand people and you mentioned their families it triggers a thought where you're absolutely right it's people that are invested in the build of a race car or
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the build of the engine is more than a job and it's a passion and Sport brings the families along as well so I I suppose you you do events family days for your staff to bring people together to make them feel part of that Journey
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when you talk about the structure of Mercedes where you've got three equal Partners we've just seen Audi enter Formula One and that's great for Formula One when you have a a big OEM like that decide to enter we've just seen Porsche
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fail to enter Formula One for reasons which I would I'd love for you to be able to share with us and the question there is really are they as able to to have that freedom of quick decisions with a structure where they
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have advisory boards and Boards because it seems to me Mercedes Grand Prix or AMG Mercedes Grand Prix racing have over a period of long-term investment managed to keep the formula one team nicely positioned in the UK away from the sort
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of headlines of what's happening when big corporate responsibility I start first with the less important part the corporate question there is plenty of examples in the past where big corporations speak um oems have failed in Formula One because of
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that decision-making process and I believe also the the unfortunate situation between Red Bull and Porsche as far as I heard is came back to the need for a big corporate to have a governance structure in place where they
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know what's happening where they know who has power for attorney which decisions are being taken and this isn't compatible with a with a structure like Red Bull or how ours would be and I think what Mercedes has learned is to
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say okay we have this we are this multinational group we need to have a certain degree of control so we have adopted whatever was necessary but they also leave us on a very long leash and I think we haven't we haven't let them
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down in 10 years we have always carried them Mercedes star with great responsibility um and and I think that's what's needed in Formula One so Audi knows about that I think this doesn't come as news to them uh when you look at the solver
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structure today Finn rousing uh entrepreneur Fred was managing it uh very quick decision making and I guess that Audi will know that this is important going forward um for Porsche it's a shame that it didn't work out would have been a great
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competitor to have not only Red Bull but also Porsche joining them but who knows maybe they find another possible structure in terms back to the people this is all that matters people um you talk about teams and you talk
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about companies but at the end what is that it's it's the amount of people it's every single individual in there and and we all in Mercedes we care we haven't furloughed anybody during covet we kept them in the jobs uh
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we we're trying to create an environment where a campus life is uh is gives benefits we are trying to be in terms of the the other possibilities that we have to support people whether they are ill or any other kind of
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personal situations to be to be very supportive because we want to because we care simply and because I care when it comes to caring it seems that you you've got the best out of Lewis Hamilton at the prime of his career by
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caring what's important to him by not trying to keep him in a slightly more for one of a better corporate box which is what I felt McLaren and where it broke down a little bit with Ron Dennis at the end of that Journey Lewis was
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discovering himself discovering the world you know winning his first titles and he felt that he needed a new journey and with Nikki who sadly no longer with us and yourself you were able to entice them over to Mercedes and they manage
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him in a way or allow him the space to have delivered this amazing run of success but you've also had one eye on the future because you've got your future proof when Lewis Hamilton eventually moves on so two questions the first one
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is about the management of Lewis Hamilton how much a little you have to do and also this this incredible journey now we have with George Russell who has really shown what you had seen before and many others in the lower formulas
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just what a great talent he is um Lewis and I have been together now for 10 years and in a way it was alpha males in a different situation that that were put in put into this together with
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Nikki and and the many very strong men and women that we have in the team and it took a few years to synchronize that and it was important to take your own ego out because what I still see today
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with Team principals and other Business Leaders is that they're trying to play the power game I am the team principal and you would do you do what I tell you and with Lewis it was always very much on
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the same eye level and I would say we today we are we're friends but we care I care for him he cares for me and he cares for the team also and you can you can see that on
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many occasions sometimes the lion comes out and you hear these um uh Angry messages but that's completely normal for a race driver and he's the one that that after hearing that he he's apologetic because he has a big heart
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um so over time we have just grown together very much we are totally transparent with each other we talk about the future also and I think it's very easy Lewis will be the first one to say I can't do this anymore
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because I feel I haven't got the reactions anymore um or I've just lost fun doing it and there is another generation growing up that's just very strong so I have no doubt that whatever we agree on a contract extension which is going to
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happen um that we we both are always going to discuss very openly what does the future hold on the same time obviously George has been um great joining the team uh he's a he's a good personality he's also he acts
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with Integrity he's very transparent working with Lewis these two really have added to the team's development slope this year and I feel very very good and to have him in the team over the over the long term how far away do you think George is from
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being ready Lewis is going to be around for the next year two years maybe three years it'd be difficult to imagine him still doing it at 40 but he he still seems to have the passion but you do need George to be
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able to not only have the speed that we're seeing but it's more than that isn't it to be a champion I think um I don't know if 40 is that age where you say well that's not adequate anymore for
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racing driver if you look at where Fernando it's with 41 years he's still very much there now is he the same Fernanda that he was at 25 I don't know but he's very competitive still um you look at Tom Brady who's somebody
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that I really admire for having the discipline and how he how he manages his life and his sport he's 43 or 44 and he's on the pitch um so I think Lewis with the way he leads his life with the full Ultra
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narrow focus on his Formula One racing uh all the others are just Hobbies I think can can take it quite far as for George we just need to provide them with the car that they're capable to win races and championships and if we
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can do that George can become a world champion and Lewis can add another title to his um to his seven uh it really comes down to us what good job we can do as a as a team I'm curious just off that and I'm not
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sure whether you you'd want to share it with everybody but I would love if you were able to the decision to put George in the car for this year and at the point at which it was taken when valtry was doing a
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carefully good job valtteri was a fast racing driver no doubt about that I think we can reflect on the fact that the record book would show that he wasn't able to deliver us consistently that speed during a Grand Prix as Lewis
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that's how it would certainly appear to me when I looked at the race total times but could you go out and dial a qualifying lap absolutely and you had to then for therefore make a decision on future proofing the team not
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losing that momentum that George has the point at which the announcement was made how how close to that point was it really in the balance and how actually early was that decision made in your mind but there was just a respectful
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time to make these sort of announcements um I think that it was also a good moment for valtry to leave the team because the pressure was enormous on him and he didn't want to be a wingman and I
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think having released him from that pressure now he's racing at Alpha is completely different and he seems also happier for me rather than this um pressure cooker and Mercedes in terms of this decision making for myself I knew
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pretty early that I wanted to have George in the car but I didn't commit to George before I knew that white tree has found a good place and we didn't I didn't commit to him and I didn't communicate to anybody outside because
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that is the respect I have for um people that that I care and when valtry Steele was done with salba over over August over the break break period then I went back to George and told him well you're in we want you to be in the car
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knowing that valtry had his place and I said to George because obviously it was a long period for him to wait I said I would do I would do the same for you and uh and that I think he understood
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interesting now it's really I think it's great insight to to you the man because we all wait publicly for announcements and of course you know the announcement isn't the signature isn't still wait when announcement goes out there's always a period that leads to that
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process now that was in the past we have to touch on one moment from the past as well because it's become relevant we're talking here after triple header we've just come out of Monza controversial I would say enter that
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Grand Prix under safety car my position is that I completely get the fie have a duty of care for a safety absolutely first and foremost but as soon as that's clear that safety is no longer an issue and that can be
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interpreted in many different ways I think we also all have a duty of care to put on a sport which is to go racing going racing in Abu Dhabi last year and the timing of that we've obviously had
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opportunity at length to see everyone's reactions to that but did Monza bring back any feelings of what you'd parked in the past that controversial end and do you feel that you want to say something about that because again it's showing we don't
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have a perfect system there's so much rides on the checkered Flags so much emotion so much work so much effort and whoever your team is I think we'd all agree we want to see good Fair racing to the
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checkered flag without sounding wanting to sound like a broken record um Abu Dhabi last year we knew the regulations and the regulations kind of led to the same result we we're going to have maybe one lap of racing
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um after which all the black markers would have unlapped themselves or the race would finish on the safety car that is what the regular what the what the regulations book said and the guy decided to do something completely different
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um and that was never seen before now what I've seen in Monster in a way uh was a good sign because the regulations were applied to the dot uh you can't change an outcome of the race by just starting to Freestyle to put on
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the best show I think nobody wants to see a race finish on the safety car we want the spectacular last lap or a few laps and I think I would be the first one to vote in favor of
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regulations that say if a racist being stopped five or ten laps before the end because the safety we don't want to have a safety car and let's go for this and restart standing start of flying start whatever you want because
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that's going to be great for the emotions um so but we need to decide on the regulations and then hopefully we can find a solution that for Stefano for the show for the fans at the track is more
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satisfying that just the parade behind the safety car and we are all Races we all want that but it needs to start with the regulations how complicated is that because of course it's easy for fans like myself on the sidelines with no
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insight to how a regulation is formulated how much of that is decided strictly by the fie and then presented as a fair to complete to the teams how much of that is an ongoing dialogue between yourself as stakeholders and
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formula one and therefore the regulator three body and of course then you have Liberty the owners of the commercial rights so you're all invested in this emotional Journey this business so what is the process to making that and how
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quickly can a change be affected because it's really not satisfactory is it I think if we have a unanimous decision and on such a topic I think we would um it is a matter of the FIA sitting down with the people of Formula One and
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the teams I think the teams have either the strategists in there or the sporting directors and they are very clever in saying this is what we need to do and then this can be voted on next week it's
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just a matter of what is it we really want when are we red flagging a lab how we are restarting it is that time being added on can we change the tires can we add more fuel you know all these things
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need to be sorted out in the detail but I think everybody would be in favor and this is why it can happen quickly to have a race that finishes on the green so for next year 2023 it could be here
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okay absolutely good to know so I want to put you in a happy place but before getting into to this year so as a reminder again and you probably of course know this but you are the most successful team principal in terms of
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multiple World Championships an amazing success in a very short period of time congratulations but over the back of that amazing one of success we have the 2022 car we have this launch of something quite different where you'll then curious is we got it
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right one of the others got it wrong and then we now know of course Ferrari probably have had the qualifying card of the year on average until later part of the Season Red Bull have obviously had very strong race Pace there's been
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reliability with your with your your main Rivals and it's been a bit of a sporadic period of development uh some great shows the pole position in Budapest you know the team looking like they could win the Grand Prix in Holland
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and who knows what the remaining races bring you but just talk us through that where did the team end up emotionally even if you see this is all part of a bigger Journey for them it's still of course disappointing when the lap time
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tells you you're probably not going to win so realistically and we talked about the last few years every every series ends one day there is no team that has that is winning every single Championship um over its lifetime and that has
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happened and it has happened because we got the physics wrong there's not nothing mystical about it suddenly we have great people um equipment infrastructure Financial resource and what we got wrong was just how the car works and in a way this gives us
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confidence to sort it out again now obviously we have missed a lot of development time to find out about bouncing and purposing and all these things so it's clear that Red Bull are in a very favorable position not only
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for this year but also for the start of next year but having said that if we were to continue our understanding and development of the car I think we can catch up quickly and this is learning on the job exercise at the
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moment our simulations don't yet give us the right results or not always give us the right results and what the car is going to do on track but that makes it makes it interesting and in terms of losing
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I think it's important to acknowledge that we just haven't just we haven't done a good enough job and the guys over in Milton Keynes and Marinello have done so the Ferrari is in my opinion was until the summer break
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the quickest car but they haven't been able to kind of translate that into points we are third on the road it's not misery it's still respectable because we could have come out further back but now we just we just need to sort it
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out and we are eager to be part of the very front fighting for race wins fighting for a championship but there is no sense of entitlement for us to to win every single Championship because that would be foolish so that's
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world of Formula One it's constant travel in between Grand Prix of which you go to pretty much all of them you've got strategy meetings and the other partners you've got investor meetings you can travel and comfort but you still
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have to go through all of the travel pain that we do so first thing is how do you deal with that and second thing being what do you do when you're not doing that are you at home with Susie
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and you know your son just chilling or do you need to keep moving I think like you say we travel uh comfortably but we are not traveling to go on holiday um and spend a week there and trying to
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recover but we're traveling for business and I did more than 500 hours last year in an airplane and more than 200 nights in a hotel room if you if you consider motorhome as a hotel room so that's very different to everybody
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else's lifestyle and if I speak to my close friends they are saying I just you just met I would never do this but I think it's the same for you we've been doing it for a long time it it is it is
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it is our job it is what we do what we follow with passion and the families have an understanding um for it at least I'm super lucky with Susie who has done that all her life and yeah and then when we have downtime it's
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it's literally just spending time together with the children and with Susie we are really really bad in socializing um outside of Formula One races um uh so we are we're staying either in Monaco or we travel around on the sea or
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do things but it's it's always us which is a little bit of a weird Behavior I guess but it's the time that I love with her and the children what is the dinner table conversation you you're an x-racer Susie's an x-racer
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you both have run teams she was had success in Formula E you have Jack your young son who almost certainly is going to be carting if he hasn't already so you're destined to be at racetracks all the time what do you guys talk about
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it motivation is more than a job it's a passion so it must be a part of every conversation I don't know if this is a Scottish thing because if Scottish x-racing drivers want their children to do the same idiocy like you're doing
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yeah uh yeah Susie started with that he's five he's karting more still on a hobby level but stopwatch is coming out slowly and I see that he enjoys that which is which is another worry for me but family life is completely normal so
Speaker A
before coming to see here she was telling me I was late and I should speed up and we were talking whether the football club in latibi was the better one or the one in um in kab Dai so it is
Speaker A
what any other normal family would discuss and agree or disagree well you clearly have the work-life balance finely tuned 200 nights in hotels and however many weak Saturdays and hours in the air flying it's it's an incredible life but I think uh you're
Speaker A
living it well we appreciate your time and we'll look forward to seeing you back on the top of the podium at some point soon it'd be nice to see George get a get a victory ahead of Lewis not
Speaker A
because of anything against Lewis but he's done a lot of winning in the past doesn't it George just seemed to show up for it and he could have had one in Bahrain when he when he jumped in the
Speaker A
car um two years ago um but I guess George is a great personality he was he was obviously hoping to to be in the Mercedes and win races and championships which uh you know he got the timing wrong
Speaker A
um but at least he has progressed to the Midfield now uh so that time is Gonna Come he will he will win races he will race for championships and I think he absolutely has it in him but maybe
Speaker A
there's another Lewis championship in between well that's the thing actually you gave me hope earlier in the interview where I in my mind that Lewis would do one or two more years and then he would take a very well deserved break
Speaker A
or stop completely but you've made me think he's going to keep going into his 40s how many more years are you going to continue this journey if Lewis is still there you're you're still going to be on the front line of Formula One well the
Speaker A
advantages that we that we speak a lot together he lives here and I live there um and just last week we sat down and uh and he says well look I have another five years in me um how do you see that
Speaker A
um fantastic news for Formula One yeah yeah it's I mean he's The Shining Star in Formula One on and off track I think we would lose the greatest personality that formula one ever had so for me I'm part of the
Speaker A
team and I'm a co-owner and I'm always gonna be part of the Journey of the of this Formula One team and whether it is in a team function as team principal CEO or a chairman that is only there to give
Speaker A
people a hard time when things are not going well I haven't decided yet but clearly we are in a difficult moment I have to be there this next couple of years managing the personalities of your two drivers is one of the greatest
Speaker A
challenges especially when you have two that are battling over the same piece of Tower Market got very close in zambords there was almost contact there so far it's a honeymoon period there will be a clash at some point so
Speaker A
how will you manage that relationship between George and Lewis well they need to find the relationship on track also because they haven't had a close racing between themselves and I said after sound work for my feeling that was a
Speaker A
little bit too close could have gone wrong uh but they know they are they are experts um I think the how I would describe the relationship is with respect the respect of the rookie that acknowledges his teammate is the greatest driver of all
Speaker A
time with Michael and the respect of Lewis who sees himself in a wave in terms of talent and age growing up and and in a way as weird as it sounds because your teammate is your first enemy Luis Mentos George also
Speaker A
the way and George accepts that a role of a Young Lion while still having the ambition to both of them the ambition to beat the teammate and then win races and championships and I think that Dynamic works very well together today
Speaker A
I'll total the answer to the question what the time is Mr Wolf is almost four o'clock and that means you have to go and do the school run go pick up your son so we thank you for your time and
Speaker A
wish you all the best for the rest of the season I'm too late already you make it up she's dead and she's there okay we don't want the upside seriously no don't upset yeah
Topics:Toto WolffMercedes F1Formula OneF1 interviewmental healthphilanthropymotorsport journeyteam principalF1 businessdriver development
