Mercedes Toto Wolff om att styra världens ledande F1-lag

När Toto Wolff var 15 år dog hans pappa i hjärncancer. Nu säger vd:n för Mercedes Formul 1-team att de ”ärr och demoner” som förlusten innebar, tvingade fram en oanad styrka i honom som barn.

En styrka som han bär med sig i dag, som ledare och delägare för världens mest framgångsrika racinglag.

I en stor intervju med Financial Times berättar Wolff om hur han övertygade Daimler att skjuta till mer kapital och den svåra rollen att medla mellan sina stjärnförare. Och varför Mercedes målade sina bilar svarta för att stötta Black Lives Matter-rörelsen.

– Vi har varit skyldiga, alla av oss, till tystnad alldeles för länge, säger han till tidningen.

‘Tough love’ and mediation help secure Formula One dominance

Toto Wolff shook up the Mercedes racing team after convincing Daimler to commit more resources.

Samuel Agini, 16 August 2020

Who could imagine Mercedes without Toto Wolff? The Austrian has led the Formula One racing team to such dominance that securing this year’s constructors’ championship would be enough to overtake Ferrari’s record for consecutive titles.

Not even the strangest F1 season in memory — a result of coronavirus — would undermine the significance of extending the Silver Arrows’ six-year winning streak. The achievement would be sweeter still if star driver Lewis Hamilton can defend his title to match the record seven titles won by Michael Schumacher.

“Other team leaders spend 50 per cent of the time worrying about the balance sheet, Toto spends 100 per cent of his time on racing,” says one rival. “That said, it’s not easy even with that to win six in a row.”

While F1 struggles to shake off accusations that Mercedes’ grip on the podium makes for a boring spectacle, German carmaker Daimler, which controls the team through a majority shareholding, can now worry less about any lingering impression that its vehicles are for taxi drivers and older men.

Much of that is down to a peerless performance on the track, which helped to drive revenues at the F1 team to £338m in 2018 from £115m in 2012.

Not that the Mercedes team principal, chief executive and part-owner is ready to accept all the plaudits.

“There [are] not one or two superstars. In our team, in our structure, there are 2,000 superstars,” Mr Wolff says.

The 48-year-old and his Scottish wife Susie, a former racing driver, have built a £355m fortune that belies the difficulties he says he faced at the age of 15, when his father died from a brain tumour.

Searching for the words as he summons painful memories, Mr Wolff says the “scars and demons” left by the loss of a parent can trigger “superpower” within a child.

Having been forced to give up his ambitions as a racing driver, Mr Wolff instead plunged into an investing career that began with technology companies in 1998.

But an investment in HWA, a German company that developed Mercedes-Benz cars for the DTM racing series, was just one interest that hinted at a future return to motorsport.

It came when he bought a stake in Frank Williams’ racing team in 2009, though he only became executive director in 2012. Their achievements included an initial public offering in 2011 and the Oxfordshire team’s first Grand Prix victory in eight years.

“I gave my heart to Williams,” says Mr Wolff. “I will always remember that when I got the offer to join Mercedes . . . I was really struggling with the decision.”

It all started with coffee. Wolfgang Bernhard, then on the Daimler board, asked Mr Wolff to assess why Mercedes had failed to win an F1 world championship since 2009 despite boasting the racing talents of Mr Schumacher and future winner Nico Rosberg.

Mr Wolff was direct. Winning in F1 requires serious resources. Convincing the Daimler board of that fact was critical.

Within weeks of receiving his report in 2012, Daimler invited him to its headquarters in Stuttgart to meet the then management board chairman Dieter Zetsche, who asked him to run the team. The late Niki Lauda, the three-time world champion and fellow Austrian, had already joined as chairman of the operation.

While Williams still struggles to compete with the sport's wealthiest players, Mercedes has the budget to compete at the top with Ferrari and Red Bull. Adding to the appeal was Daimler’s willingness to make a 30 per cent stake in the racing team available for Mr Wolff to purchase. As at Williams, he wanted skin in the game.

In January 2013, Mr Wolff was appointed managing partner, following a season in which Northamptonshire-based Mercedes finished fifth.

“He was lucky they had quite a large budget,” says Bernie Ecclestone, the former F1 supremo, who attributed Mr Wolff’s success to running the team like a business, hiring well and making sure staff did what they were supposed to do.

But the appointment stoked tensions with Ross Brawn, who led the predecessor to the Mercedes team — when it was still known as Brawn GP — to its last championship victory.

Going up against the F1 veteran — a near-peerless technical expert with a bulging trophy cabinet — was a sign of Mr Wolff’s willingness to shake up Mercedes.

Trust with the former Mercedes team principal broke down. One sticking point was that Mr Wolff hired Paddy Lowe as the team’s technical director, further encroaching on Mr Brawn’s remit. By the end of 2013, Mr Brawn was gone and so was his chance of sharing in the six seasons of glory that would follow.

“I must admit that it was very difficult for him,” concedes Mr Wolff.

Although it might have looked like Mr Wolff and Lauda had connived to oust Mr Brawn, power battles strained their own relationship, particularly in 2013, when they clashed over the division of their responsibilities.

“Niki and I were always our own bosses. We ran our companies and had our own perspectives,” says Mr Wolff.

Daimler was so concerned that it called a board meeting. But Mr Wolff says he and Lauda met quietly beforehand, settled their differences and defused the situation with a handshake in front of the board.

The pair seized the first of Mercedes’ six consecutive crowns after finishing second to Red Bull in 2013. Their success continued after Mr Ecclestone departed in 2017 when Liberty Media, the US group controlled by billionaire John Malone, completed its $8bn deal to acquire the racing series.

Internal friction has been a constant feature of Mr Wolff’s tenure. A believer in “tough love”, the Mercedes principal soon became mediator to his drivers, who clashed on the track and jousted in press conferences.

Mr Rosberg quit after winning his sole championship in 2016, just five points ahead of his teammate Mr Hamilton in a championship that went down to the final day of the season.

Rather than allow the acrimony to fester, Mr Wolff and Mr Hamilton settled their differences in the kitchen of the Mercedes boss’s Oxford home. Mr Hamilton has not lost a world title since.

Managing Mercedes’ star driver has become more complicated over the years, particularly following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May.

While protesters against racism and police brutality gathered in the US, the UK and beyond, F1 remained silent. Mr Hamilton accused the industry of being complicit.

“We have been — all of us — guilty of being silent for way too long,” says Mr Wolff.

After discussing Mr Hamilton’s views, Mercedes decided to paint its car black this season, convincing sponsors to agree and Daimler to adopt a change of livery after decades of racing in silver.

Mr Wolff wants to increase the proportion of its minority ethnic and female staff from 3 per cent and 12 per cent today.

“We don’t want this launch of the black livery to be a PR stunt. We don’t want to join companies that feel it is the flavour of the month to speak up against racism,” says Mr Wolff.

His next challenge will be to retain his leading driver, who is yet to renew his contract, which expires at the end of this season.

Mr Wolff has also had to deal with speculation about his own future, heightened by a personal investment in Aston Martin, which is entering F1 next year following a £500m rescue led by Lawrence Stroll, owner of the Racing Point F1 team.

With F1 set to introduce a budget cap and a fairer split of its revenues among the teams next year, the greatest test of Mr Wolff’s stranglehold on the sport is yet to come.

Three questions for Toto Wolff

If you were not a CEO what would you be?

”An investor.”

Who is your leadership hero?

”Ray Dalio [founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates] for his management principles; Warren Buffett [chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway] for the value-based investment model; Ola Kallenius [chairman of Daimler] for his pragmatism; Dave Brailsford [British cycling coach] for marginal gains theory; Luca Cordero di Montezemolo [former chairman of Ferrari] for his taste; Frank Williams for his resilience; Jim Ratcliffe [founder of Mercedes F1 sponsor Ineos] for thinking big; Sergio Marchionne [the Canadian-Italian chief executive who saved Fiat from bankruptcy] for toughness.”

What was the first leadership lesson you learnt?

”How to read a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement.”