Toto Wolff reveals how Williams’ surprise victory helped him secure Mercedes role
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff revealed a jibe at Pastor Maldonado that helped him get his place on the team, as the Austrian businessman gave a comparison between the star Mercedes drivers and the then-Williams driver.
Wolff was a shareholder and executive at Williams in 2012, when Maldonado took a surprising victory in the Spanish Grand Prix. At the time, Mercedes had won just once since returning as a works team in 2010, with Nico Rosberg’s victory in China earlier that season.
Speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast with Stripe co-founder John Collison, Wolff said that the win with Williams was followed by a call from the Mercedes parent company.
“One of the board members approached me and invited me to Stuttgart, and he said, ‘How can it be that your private little team can win a race, and we, Mercedes, we can’t do any better than that?’” Wolff said.
After being given access to the team’s figures, Wolff asked the board what it expected from its F1 programme. The answer was world championships, and the Austrian told them their ambitions did not match the team’s spending.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
“I said, ‘OK, then one of us is wrong because I’m working on the same budgets, and I’m thinking about finishing in the top six.’ They said, ‘No, it’s not the same budget. Look, we spend 100 million more.’
“I said, ‘Yeah, those 100 millions you spend on Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, I have a pay driver from Venezuela,’ who won the race, by the way, Pastor. ‘That’s the main difference.’ They didn’t like that situation at all. I said, ‘I’m just a messenger, and I’m going to go back to Williams.’”
Maldonado, who brought substantial backing from Venezuela to Williams, beat Fernando Alonso to win in Barcelona from pole. It remained the only grand prix victory of his F1 career.
Mercedes later returned with an offer.
“Eventually, they came back and said, ‘We think our model, a corporate running a Formula 1 team, doesn’t function, because it needs to be much more entrepreneurially led, you need to be empowered to make decisions on the spot, and we want you to run this.’”
Wolff said he initially turned the role down because he was a shareholder in Williams, but Mercedes offered to help him buy into the team instead.
He joined Mercedes at the start of 2013, and the team went on to win eight consecutive constructors’ championships from 2014 to 2021.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
– The Motorsport.com Team
