© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff attended the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Friday Press Conference. Here is the full transcript.
Q: Toto, coming to you now. So, we had Lewis in here yesterday and he revealed that Red Bull, he thought, were one and a half seconds a lap faster in the race in Bahrain than Mercedes. Do you expect to be closer here?
Toto WOLFF: I think in motor racing, everything can happen, and Bahrain is a track that is very different and so is Jeddah, like James mentioned before. But there are no miracles in this sport. And I hope that we can perform better than we did in Bahrain. At that stage of the season, and where we are with our position, it is very much trying to find performance for ourselves. I don’t think that we can beat the teams in front of us. That’s the reality. It’s about tuning the car to the best of their abilities here on track. And then see where we end up in Qualifying and in the race.
Q: But looking at the season as a whole. If it is one and a half seconds a lap, as Lewis says, Does the W14 have the development scope to close that gap?
TW: We are very clear and transparent in the team, where and how much is missing. And we will just need to relentlessly push to find more performance and for sure what we’re not doing is giving up, even if at that stage, you’re looking at the gaps and thinking ‘how are we ever going to bridge that?’ But the drive is there, determination is there and I think, different to before Bahrain, we pretty much know where we need to tackle the performance deficit.
Q: Have you pinpointed a race where you need to have made significant progress? Is it Baku, I think I’ve heard mentioned, where we’re going to see some significant developments?
TW: We have set ourselves, internally, strong targets because we know where the deficit is but I wouldn’t want to talk publicly about it because it would just put pressure where… we have enough pressure doing it ourselves.
Q: Well, talking of pressure, Lewis said yesterday that he used an unfortunate choice of words when he talked about the team after the race in Bahrain. Do you agree that it was an unfortunate choice of words and have you spoken to him about it?
TW: Well, we speak all the time, but it’s not a single word that matters in the team because we know each other so well. We know there are emotions at play with him, with me, with many others in the team and that we wear our hearts on our sleeves, and sometimes you say things that in the media being very quickly translated in a controversial way or polarising, which, inside of the team, never cause any waves because we know that the emotions can run high. And to be honest, if I’m watching a lap time deficit, a coming together or a race that doesn’t go well, I’d also like to say that I’m not happy where the team, where the car has been developed to. But that’s OK inside of the team, we want the emotion high and we have tough love, we are saying it straight out when it’s missing and nobody’s ever going to… not take it on the chin in the team.
Q: The driver silly season has come especially early this year it seems, much of it involving Lewis, whose contract is up for renewal at the end of this season. Are you keen to get those contract discussions started especially early?
TW: Well, I have no idea what is being said in the silly season. I just know where we are with Lewis and with George and nothing else is relevant and we’re talking when we want to do it and how but we just need to change some terms, the dates basically.
Q: So you’re confident that Lewis will stay at the team beyond this year?
TW: I’m absolutely confident.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Jon Noble – Motorsport.com) Toto, George said yesterday that there was a big meeting in Brackley after Bahrain going through what’s gone wrong, the action plan, everything’s now set in place and you know the path you’re going down. What is the plan to turn things around? What are the short-term possibilities and potential change of concepts and all new direction for where you go?
TW: There’s many big and many good meetings happening in the team and it’s quite an interesting process because… We had the perfect storm last year because the car got better and better and then you start to question the concept of the car less than you probably should. And now we have to prove that we’re not happy where we’ve landed, we’re overall not happy about the amount of downforce, the mechanical balance, I mean all of it, it never comes alone. And I think all these meetings are giving us more clarity, and more focus where we need to tackle in order to turn this around quickly.
Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing News 365) Toto, could you just clarify: if you change concept, you have to change the entire chassis? And do you have budget for that and crash tests and whatever?
TW: No, I think that it’s out of the question that you change the chassis, because simply there is not enough budget in the cost cap. But changing the way the aerodynamics work and bodywork is perfectly within the scope.
Q: (Matt Kew – Autosport) Toto, the team has been very honest, issuing a letter this week to all its fans, which I understand for an eight-time Constructors champion that the results aren’t where you want them to be but it’s not a total disaster to where even Lewis qualifying or going out in Q1 last year. So why did the team feel the need to be that honest and address it so publicly?
TW: Yeah, it can always go worse, don’t remind me of that Q1 last year, that’s still a little bit of a trauma. I think we really over those 10 years have created a culture which is around tough love. We were able to have conversations that are maybe in some other groups or companies or teams out of the ordinary, but in our team we are just able to confront each other with the reality. And the reality is always based on our own expectations of our own performances and now we can say, you know we got it wrong last year and this is where it was and we really continue to push hard to get the car to a better place. And at the end of the season, we were able to win a Grand Prix and we were in a way respectable considering where we started the year. So going into 2023, the expectations were, we’re going to close the gap more and we’re going to be able to win more races and hopefully fight for a championship and that hasn’t happened and therefore, after Bahrain, this is the status quo. And it will be the status quo in Jeddah because there ain’t no miracles in the sport and we’re just honest about it. And we take the responsibility and accountability. I hate the results, because of what we all expected from ourselves, and so does everybody else in the team.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Toto, picking up on mentioning tough love a couple of times there, I did want to ask about Niki and how much you’re missing him particularly at this tough point, Niki was very forthright, often an important source of counsel to you as well. So particularly now are you missing him more than ever.
TW: Niki’s missed all those years because Niki always simplified things to really what mattered. And so I’m having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned and the two of us worked well together in that sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the results but there are lots of nuances. This is a technical sport so maybe my role was to translate it in a way that we actually were able to execute it in the car design. But this is very simple: the stopwatch never lies, and we see on the data where we are missing and that needs to be corrected.
Q: (Scott Mitchell-Malm – The Race) Question for Toto again. Sorry.
TW: I’m going to ask some questions to the other guys. It happened to me too.
Q: (Scott Mitchell-Malm – The Race) There were comments last year and in Bahrain from the team that you had assessed other design options, but were adamant that this concept was the best way to go. What’s changed? Why is there now a belief that if you go in a different direction, it will be better when that wasn’t what you thought before?
TW: I think we’d really tried hard to make it work, because the data that we have extrapolated showed us that this works. And we were proven wrong, very simply. And you can see that the two quickest cars, including the Ferraris – the three quickest cars – that have a similar concept of how they generate performance, and it’s very different to ours. And at a certain stage we came to the conclusion, we got this wrong. Simply, we got it wrong. Why we got it wrong, we’re still analysing because we follow data and we followed what simulations tell us, in that case we were misguided by those data. And all of us involved in the decision-making process came to the conclusion well, we can’t continue that way. We really tried to stick to it and we don’t want to, under any circumstance, run in a one-way street saying, ‘we’re going to make this work no matter what’, because it doesn’t work. And I don’t want to lose more time so my colleagues, so don’t want my colleagues as well. So…
Q: Given everything you’ve just said, what are your goals for the remainder of 2023?
TW: The goals: I’d like to win every race starting Sunday but that’s not realistic. The goals are that based on the understanding that we have now, that over the next iterations of updates and learning, we can shave off a lot of performance deficit because now we know and now we have all taken a decision in which direction to go.
Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Toto, I know on Lewis you said that you’re absolutely confident that he’ll stay but is there any part of you that’s concerned or worried that he might start speaking to rival teams just to explore his options, if he isn’t convinced that Mercedes can’t return to winning ways? Or do you think it’s Mercedes or bust for Lewis?
TW: I don’t think that Lewis will leave Mercedes. He’s at the stage of a career where we trust each other, we have formed the great bond among each other and we have no reason to doubt each other, even though this is a difficult spell. But so nice it will be when we come out of this valley of tears, and come back to solid performances. As a driver, nevertheless, if he wants to win another championship, he needs to make sure that he has the car. And if we cannot demonstrate that we’re able to give him a car in the next couple of years, then he needs to look everywhere. I don’t think he’s doing it at that stage, but I will have no grouch if that happens in a year or two.
Q: (Ben Hunt – The Sun) A question for Toto. Lewis has announced that he’s separated from Angela [Cullen]. I just wondered whether you were aware that this was coming? What’s in play to help Lewis this weekend? I just wondered your thoughts on it?
TW: I don’t know what has been announced. Angela was part of the gang for a long time. I think in every team, whether that is his close circle, or also in the wider group, you know, this is not a static situation that you can freeze, because we all develop as people, we develop as an organisation and if things don’t work out anymore, then we need to be honest about it and then bring change. Angela will always be a mascot of the team. She’s the only one who has a louder voice than a starting car. But, you know, if this is what he decides, we will always absolutely support him, whatever direct direction he wants to take.
Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) James, Toto has spoken quite a few times now about tough love within Mercedes. Obviously, you were there through a period of sustained winning and titles. But can you give us an example of that tough love that you perhaps experienced?
James Vowles: So first of all, it’s never one systematic item, it’s more about the fact that you can have openness and honesty to talk about problems, without fear of repercussions, without fear of what the implication is on the relationship. Toto and myself, last year, if I take that as an example, had many of these conversations, and actually our bond became stronger, not weaker, as a result of it. But you need to have the environment where you have no fear about what the implication is on the relationship, but more that you both want the same goal of moving forward. So that’s really what tough love is about.
TW: It’s a shame that that James has gone because now I could say, well, it’s all your fault. And we never blame the person we only blame the problem but he’s gone, so I need to find him in his garage!
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS) Toto, do you consider the budget cap your real enemy this year? Is it finance? Or is it mainly a question of time, too little time?
TW: I think the budget cap, in a way, has more positives than negatives. But obviously, if you’re on the back foot, like we are at the moment, it doesn’t allow you to build a second chassis. But I think our fundamental problem is not building a second chassis or throwing stuff at the car. It’s more about a direction that we’ve taken that’s wrong. And I think if we… When we change it now, that’s going to be limited by the budget cap, but not in the way that you would expect, like we’re not able to develop. We’re still able to develop but it will mean we need to spend time on a new concept, on new ideas, and we need to discontinue the old one. So in the short term, it could mean you make a step back before making two forward, but these are the rules. They have been introduced exactly for the reason to put the field stronger together, which will eventually happen. I mean, Red Bull is showing us that if you do a good job you can outperform everybody else. But for us, these are the rules and we need to still do a better job.
Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) Following up, Toto, is it likely, then, that you might change chassis completely for next year, because you know you’ve got that resource? And are there any plans in place at the moment that you’re already starting to develop the ’24 car?
TW: So when you speak about the chassis, the question is, do you speak about the monocoque and basically the tub or are we speaking about everything else around? And I think the monocoque is one thing, and that’s obviously there are weight implications, COG implications, where does the driver sit, more forward or more rearwards, but I think the biggest gains that we need to find is how can we extract more downforce all around the track. And these are the areas we are chasing now, and once you come to the conclusion in the next few months, that that was the right avenue, then things are going continue that way. And if we see that is not enough to actually challenge for the front, then there might be more radical decisions that need to be taken.
Q: (Scott Mitchell-Malm – The Race) Sorry, another one for Toto. And sorry if I’m being particularly dim on understanding this. You said, you’re still trying to understand why you got it wrong, why the data misled you. How can you commit to another direction if you don’t fully understand that yet? Are you going effectively a little bit blind to something as a learning exercise, just to see if that throws up more information than you could tell on your initial simulations or is there something else?
TW: We do understand, crystal clear, what we’ve done and why we ended up in a place that doesn’t bring us performance. But understanding it from the, let’s say, scientific side isn’t yet, you know, it’s sometimes difficult to find a way back into real performance onto the car, but we have a big step ahead to what we’ve seen after the test, in terms of our understanding.
Q: (Adam Cooper – Motorsport.com) Toto, can you clarify Jérôme [D’Ambrosio’s] new role? Can you say getting more deeply involved in the future? Is he a potential replacement for you one day, down the line?
TW: Well, Jerome is taking over some of James’s topic, so if Jérôme is here we wouldn’t have missed out on Logan, right? So he’s looking after the young driver programme in very close cooperation with Gwen [Lagrue], who has been doing it very successfully over the last few years. With Gwen’s team we are looking at grassroots motorsports from the early stages of go-karts, and this is where Gwen is very active, and he was the one working with James, and now within the Brackley structure it’s Jerome who has taken that over, and he’s looking at things and there’s plenty of plenty of scope that James did beyond the strategy work. So I see Jerome growing in the organisation, but at this stage, that’s his area.
Q: (Matt Kew – Autosport) Another question for Toto. On Jérôme obviously, he has existing ties to Susie through the Venturi relationship. Is that how you came across him and decided he would be a good fit for this role?
TW: I have known Jérôme since a long time, because back in the day when he was in the Renault driver development, I thought about managing him. So it’s 15 or 20 years ago, and then we had a look again at him when he when he dropped out of the programme. So I’ve known him as a racing driver, but never from the human standpoint, and never from the managerial side. And I think when Susie offered him the option to jump out of the cockpit into a management role, he took it with both hands and they were quite a good competitive duo, and Jérôme led it into another year and finished second in the Formula E Championship. I think he has the knowhow of having been a racing driver at a very high level. He was a go-karting world champion. He’s been in Formula 1 and on the other side, the skills as a manager. So where that will lead him is a question; today it’s at a very early stage. He is just coming in in the driver development part and administrative functions. And we shall see where that goes.
Source: FIA.com
