© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff attended the Bahrain Grand Prix Thursday Press Conference. Here is the full transcript.
Q: Toto, coming to you. Now, there’s a feeling inside the Formula 1 paddock that Mercedes was masking its pace last week at the test. How satisfied are you with the work done so far with W15?
Toto WOLFF: Yeah, I would wish we’re masking our performance, but why would we? I think it’s important to understand where you are in the competitive order, where you’re lacking performance and where the car is good and that’s why we’ve approached it as every other pre-season test. So we will see where, as Zak said, the chips fall down.
Zak BROWN: So, you’re masking?
TW: No, no, no masking. What happens later today, I think it’s going to be a much better performance picture because it’s the representative conditions. And tomorrow is when the bullshit stops.
Q: George did mention last week a recurrence of bouncing with your car. How much of a concern is that?
TW: Bouncing obviously has been a feature in our car for quite a few seasons, but I would say it’s more what is inherent to these regulations. We can see some degree of bouncing in other cars, less severe, more severe. And I think ground effect has as a consequence that you want to have those cars close to the ground and ride, and bouncing can be an effect of that. And we’ve seen that once the track ramps in, the faster it goes, the more it becomes a feature. But I hope we’ve found some tools to tune it or dial it out as good as possible.
Q: And Toto, can you just describe the atmosphere inside Mercedes at the moment? How have two frustrating seasons changed the mentality of the team?
TW: What is very nice to experience is being part of a group that is very positive in terms of the approach. It reminds me of the 2013 and ‘14 years, when I was lucky enough to join the team. What a buzz the whole organisation had. And after those two difficult years, this is very much what I feel at the moment. The spirits are high. We have a good ambience in the team, very collaborative. trusting, empowering, and just a lovely place to work at the moment.
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PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) What’s your reaction to Red Bull’s statement yesterday?
TW: Well, I just read the statement, which was pretty basic, I would say. My personal opinion is we can’t really look behind the curtain. At the end of the day, there is a lady in an organisation that has that has spoken to HR and said there is an issue and it was investigated and yesterday, you know, the sport has received the message, it’s all fine, we’ve looked at it. I believe that with the aspiration as a global sport on such critical topics it needs more transparency and I wonder what the sport’s position is. We are competitors, we are a team, and we can have our own personal opinions or not, but it’s more like a general reaction or action that we as a sport need to assess what is right in that situation and what is wrong.
Q: (Ian Parkes – New York Times) Bearing in mind you’ve just answered that last question, bearing in mind what you’ve just said, should pressure be brought to bear on Red Bull’s parent company to reveal more details, or is this a double-edged sword and fairness and privacy has to be respected to the parties involved?
TW: Again, as I said, we are being asked questions as competitors here. And are we talking as competitors? Are we talking with the right moral approach, with the values based on the speculations that are out there? But I just simply think that as a sport, we cannot afford to leave things in the vague and in the opaque on critical topics like this. Because this is going to catch us out. Eventually… We are in a super transparent world. Eventually things are going to happen. and I think we have the duty or the organisation has the duty to say well we’ve looked at it and it’s OK and then we can move on. I think it’s sometimes very short-sighted to try, you know, suppress it, but not saying this has happened, we’re standing from the outside and looking at it, but just looking at statements or press releases or timelines, it just seems that it’s not as modern as things go in this world, in the real world out there. But maybe in Formula 1, we just have a little bubble and we think that’s OK.
Q: (Jon Noble – Motorsport.com) One of the topics of discussion and controversy before the season has been the issue of alliances between teams and customer parts and where we go in the future. Just on that general topic, to Toto and Fred, what do you think about the issue? Is it something that should be debated for 26?
TW: Yeah, I think Fred’s arguments are very valid and so are Zak’s. I think there is a legacy situation with Red Bull that the sport owes them a lot. They have two teams, they finance them, they have a great junior program, a track and lots of brand value. And so they are not like any other smaller team. So I think on the shareholder level, it’s quite a difficult discussion based on that contribution. But on the other side, we are a constructors’ sport and I believe same shareholding, same location, share of facilities, it’s clear that some ambiguity is always going to be left with competitors and I think what we need to look at is the regulations. Are the regulations robust enough? Are they policed well enough for us to feel in a safe place? Are we seeing some potential loopholes? And what is it we need for 2026? And I think that is the main question. Define regulations that feel everyone comfortable with the situation. From the small teams that use such collaboration, like Haas, because it’s going to be very difficult for them to stand on their own feet, to the teams that have no relationships with any other, or no customer-client relationship, to the big teams all the way on the other end that have joint shareholding and same locations. And I believe that is the thing we need to be tackling, that everybody is fine with the situation.
Q: Toto, let’s look into that then. Do you think the situation between RB and Red Bull Racing is similar to Haas and Ferrari?
TW: No, I don’t think you can compare them, because there is more, how can I say, boxes that are being ticked, because with Haas we have an organisation that couldn’t be standing on its own feet with its own staff, and it’s clearly that they are a client of the Ferrari infrastructure, but I don’t think that Ferrari would ever see great benefit, and I’m sorry for Haas, but in utilising or in extrapolating any information or so. And I don’t say that anybody else is doing it, but you can clearly see if you are in the same place, with the same management, with the same structures, that there are reasons why people are being sceptical. And I think this is just what needs to be safeguarded. But having said that, all teams are in a different position. And as a sport, we need to have all of the 10 teams happy with the situation, so we are not excluding the small ones that need such corporations, to the ones that by sheer shareholding are sister companies, and that’s fine, and to the big ones that have no relationships, you know, like McLaren, to us, which has a relationship with many. So, you know, just 2026 is the point where we can reset that.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Toto, as mentioned, we’ve got 72 practice sessions this year, and it’s a very long season. I know you, as a Team Principal, have always placed well-being at the heart of a lot of what the team does. Could you talk about the importance of that, not only from a performance point of view, like looking after your people, making sure they’re fresher for a season, but also doing the right thing morally as well?
TW: I’m not sure I understand everything, the acoustics are bad. What the free practice session does for the sport, is that the question? How many schedule, 24 races? OK. Yeah, 24 races. I mean, when you look at the calendar and the first two months, you’re already looking at it with fright. But we need to take the positives. The sport is very popular at the moment globally, and we need to treasure it and be careful with it because it could also not be the case. And from a performance standpoint, it’s a balance you need to get right as a team. And I believe everybody’s different in the organisations. How much travel, how much strain are you putting on your people versus their mental wellbeing and therefore also their performance capability. And that’s something that we are looking at very carefully. There are people that want to travel to all the races. This is the lifestyle they feel really happy about. And then there are others, they want to, you know, maybe not do all of the races and spend more time in the office or with their families. And fundamentally it all comes down to the same objective and this is performance. No one in in our team would be part of the racing team or part of the organisation if they wouldn’t be 100% focused and passionate about performance. They’re senior people. We empower them. So it’s important to have a close understanding of what is it we need to do to have everyone in a good place. And it’s key.
Q: (Molly Hudson – The Times) If you were in the position of Red Bull and there was an investigation into a senior member of one of your staff, are you confident that you have the structures in place for a transparent outcome of that? And is that where you feel the FIA and Formula 1 need to step in to help you with that too?
TW: I can also only talk about us and maybe we have a different starting point or different benchmark because we are Mercedes. We are one of the 10 most important brands in the world and compliance, good governance, transparency, D&I is all part of what we do every day. And therefore, sometimes for us, it’s difficult to understand another world. And in our organisation, it’s just we keep the finger on the pulse all the time because it is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also where you need to stand in terms of your values as a company today. And this is where Mercedes and the Formula 1 team stand.
Q: (Matt Coch –Speed Café) I just wanted to go back to the common ownership and shared technical resources and parts. And I guess, Zak we know your views. So Toto and Fred, do you think it’s fair that there’s organizations that are able to freely transfer staff with seemingly no gardening leave where other teams can’t? I guess, Laurent, a right of response to yourself for the same question.
TW: So, you know, I’m talking about our own business here because we are earning good money in supplying parts. We are selling suspensions to Aston Martin and to Williams and gearboxes and aerodynamic services in terms of the wind tunnel to Aston Martin. And that is quite a, you know, that’s quite a profit contributor. But I’d rather not have any of that and have all of us being constructor. Because then we can stop all of these discussions. Because like Zak brought it up, if one guy takes all the decisions, or a small group of people for two teams, what does it mean for our good governance in the sport? You have two votes in a 10-group F1 commission. You already have 20% of the votes. And none of us has that. I know there’s the argument always, ‘yeah, well, Williams is going to vote like you’. But look at the stats. That’s not the case. Certainly not the case for everything that’s chassis-related. I haven’t seen any of different voting on chassis-related topic or any other voting between AlphaTauri and Red Bull. Because it’s one person that probably decides what the vote is.
Source: FIA.com
