Mercedes Chief Misses Niki Lauda As Team Cripples Under Performance Pressure

Niki Lauda is missed by us all, but Toto Wolff misses him even more than usual right now.

As the Mercedes team navigates through their current performance problems and strives to get back to their winning ways, Toto Wolff reveals that he continues to miss the presence of Niki Lauda in the Mercedes camp. Lauda, a triple Formula 1 world champion, joined Mercedes as Non-Executive Chairman in 2012, and played a significant role in building the team and preparing it for dominance in the turbo-hybrid era. It was even revealed that he was the one that pushed for Lewis Hamilton to be brought into the tribe. Mercedes went on to win seven consecutive drivers' titles and eight straight constructors' crowns during this period.

Lauda was a frequent presence in the paddock and the Mercedes garage, but when he sadly passed away at the age of 70 in 2019, his place in the team was sorely missed. 

At the time, Wolff stated that the team had "lost a guiding light," and after the recent issues in the Brackley squad, the team chief is feeling it like never before.

“Niki’s missed all those years because Niki always simplified things to really what mattered.

“I’m having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned [things], 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.”

To address their performance issues, Mercedes has committed to a concept change as part of their plans to correct the W14's problems. Wolff set out his targets for the remainder of the 2023 campaign, stating that he would "like to win every race", but acknowledges that it is not realistic. 

Instead, based on their current understanding, Wolff aims to make significant progress and "shave off a lot of performance deficit, because now we know and now we have all taken a decision in which direction to go.”