Lewis Hamilton has changed his stance on the suitability of his Mercedes team principal to run Formula One and now says Toto Wolff would make an excellent candidate to take over the sport.
After the French Grand Prix Hamilton said he believed it best for F1 to be led by someone without previous team affiliations but on consideration he now says he is confident Wolff could do the job.
Wolff joined Mercedes at the same time as Hamilton in 2013 and the two have enjoyed huge success since. Before the French Grand Prix Hamilton, alongside the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA) president, Alex Wurz, and the Renault driver Nico Hülkenberg, attended a meeting of F1 management, the FIA and the teams as they discussed the future of the sport and new regulations for 2021.
The British driver was not impressed at how the sport was being run, felt it was crucial teams were not involved in forming regulations and that someone neutral should lead the sport. It is a position he has now reconsidered, he explained, before this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.
“I was conflicted,” he said. “I have thought about it and bringing someone in who doesn’t know so much about F1 is not necessarily the right decision. If you look at people like Toto and you can see how this company is managed from the top down, I could never do his job.”
Mercedes have won every race this season, with Hamilton taking six victories, including the past four in a row. They have won the drivers’ and constructors’ championships every year since 2014. Hamilton has won four of his five titles in partnership with the team and Wolff.
“I am fascinated by how people manage businesses and I don’t know anyone else who is able to do as good a job as Toto in that respect,” he said. “I am within the organisation and I see it up close hand; I think Toto could do a pretty special job. That is just from the experience of working in this organisation and seeing it improve drastically since I have been in the team.”
Ross Brawn, F1’s sporting director who is in the process of forming new regulations, had welcomed more driver participation earlier in the week. “It will be great to have an input directly from the drivers,” he said. “I’m happy Lewis has confirmed his willingness to make his own contribution in the coming months.”
Hamilton has said he will continue to take part in the discussions as the GPDA sees fit and remained optimistic that its input would be taken on board. “I am just really happy they have allowed us to come in and be a part of it,” he said. “It is going to be a group thing, what was really encouraging [was] that they really took on board what we were saying as drivers.
“We were able to comment on everything and they went back to the things we had commented on. It is key we stay part of that and work with them.”
