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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff describes how a long conversation with Lewis Hamilton, in his kitchen, changed “a purely business related relationship” into “a personal relationship”
Back in 2016 Lewis Hamilton and his team-mate Nico Rosberg were locked in a fierce battle for the Formula 1 championship for the third year in a row.
This fight spilled off the track too, with the Mercedes team split between the two camps. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff reveals it also brought tension to his relationship with Lewis.
However, this all changed after they had a long conversation in Toto’s kitchen at a Christmas party, in the aftermath of Nico Rosberg’s title win.
“We met at the Christmas party in my home in Oxfordshire that December, reluctantly,” the Austrian explained.
“I said we need to decide whether we want to work together or not. ‘You want to win as a driver, I want to win as a team’.
“Sometimes our different agendas are going to lead to conflict and we need to decide whether we can cope with that situation. We were in my kitchen.
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“I said to him, and Susie didn’t much like this analogy, that even though Susie and I might disagree about something, it would never come into my mind to divorce.
“And it’s the same with you Lewis, I said. ‘I don’t want a divorce. You’re the best driver. I want you in our car and we want to provide you with the best car’.”
Toto goes on to explain how this conversation completely changed the dynamic between them.
“We kind of went into this discussion at loggerheads and then, after four or five hours in the kitchen, we found ourselves on a totally different level.
“A purely business related relationship had become a personal relationship. He’s a friend.
“Doesn’t mean we don’t argue anymore but now, Lewis’s success is the team’s success, and the team’s success is Lewis’s success,” Wolff concluded.
