© Paul Ripke for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff praised Mercedes’ driver line-up and talked about what it takes to be “one of the most successful sports teams in the world”.
While answering fans’ questions, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff talked about the team’s driver dynamic.
“When managing drivers, you have to embrace the fact that they will pursue their dreams and the main target is going to be to win a world championship,” the Austrian said.
“And that can create some tension because not always these objective are aligned with the team objectives.
“What I’m really proud of is that over all these years we have always managed to get the drivers behind the team’s objective and behind Mercedes’ target to be one of the most successful sports teams in the world.
“You can see that we’ve had our ups and had our downs, but fundamentally the drivers have been a really strong contributing factor to all of our successes.”
While Lewis Hamilton’s success cannot be denied, Valtteri Bottas also managed to pick up his game and produce the best result of his career in 2019.
“Valtteri and Lewis work really well together. They have been pushing each other.
“I think both of them had a decent season. Obviously, Lewis won the championship but Valtteri was always there, won a handful of races, and I think has grown as a racing driver.
“And this is a dynamic that is really positive for the team. In that respect, I believe that we have a sensational driver line-up going forward.”
Wolff went on to explain how he keeps the team motivated even after winning six consecutive Constructors’ Championships.
“Every single year since 2014 we have tried to set an objective that really motivated us,” explained Wolff.
“In 2019, the overwhelming target was to win a sixth consecutive double championship, which wasn’t done before in Formula 1 and up to our knowledge wasn’t done before in any other sport on a world championship level.
“So, this was the target that really kept us going, also on the difficult days helped us to push through the weekends that didn’t go the way we expected.
“It’s something that really kept us energized over the whole year.
“I think there is a reason why there are not many sport teams out there that have won many consecutive championships.
“Because you need to keep the team together but equally be aware that this is a dynamic structure that needs to evolve.
“You need to look at the levels of motivation and energy of the team members, you need to keep the seniority and the know-how in the team but equally don’t create a bottleneck for talent that’s coming up.
“And this transition and motivation factor is something that I think we have managed well.
“It’s something that is certainly very difficult, and this is why it wasn’t done before,” concluded Wolff.
