© Wolfgang Wilhelm for Daimler AG
Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff says he had to explain to Daimler that a bigger budget was needed if Mercedes was to win the championship.
In 2013 Wolff left a leadership position with Williams to join Mercedes. Before joining the German manufacturer Wolff was asked to give his opinion on Mercedes’ racing operation.
“You need to understand where within your infrastructure, and within your resources – financial resources, human resources, technical capability – you’re lacking,” explained the Austrian.
“And if you’re not brutally honest with yourself, and understand where the gaps are, you will never have an organisation that will be able to fight at the front in a sustainable way.
“This is what we did at the end of 2012. I only joined in January 2013, but in September 2012 I was given three months – without having decided yet whether to join – by the board to give a personal opinion, without having a deep insight, of what I thought was going wrong. I was at Williams, so I wasn’t really given the detail.
“The start of the journey was to understand what the expectations of Daimler were with their team, and the expectations were to win championships – on resource that was about equal to what I had at Williams, and our expectation was to come in fourth or fifth!
“I don’t want to talk too much about that. What I can tell you is that when I joined, within a few months we were given 20% more budget.
“That message didn’t reach the board before [he brought up the need to increase the budget].”
Source: F1 Racing Magazine
