Mercedes CEO Answers F1 Team Principal Questions

WIRED

Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team Principal, CEO, and Co-Owner Toto Wolff joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about leading a Formula 1 team. How is a Formula 1 team typically set up? Is the Team Principal the same as the Crew Chief? Who is currently the most underrated F1 driver? How much sleep does Toto Wolff get at night? Answers to these questions and plenty more await on Formula 1 Team Principal Support.  Director: Lauren Zeitoun Director of Photography: James Lamond Editor: A.J. Schultz Expert: Toto Wolff Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen Associate Producer: Brandon White  Talent Booker: Meredith Lee Camera Operator: Aran Lamond; Miles Stowey Production Assistant: Jasmine Breinburg

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Toto Wolf. I'm the CEO and team principal of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula

00:04One team and I'm here to answer your questions. So, this is F1 team principal support.

00:13Holy flower, nice. How do you make decisions when the data says one thing but your instinct says

00:18another? Formula One is the only real sport where you have that interaction between engineering and

00:25the human. So, we have all of these data channels that provide us information around what the car

00:30does and then you have a human in the car that's driving it. You can't really map that human because

00:36what does it mean to have a good and a bad day? What does it mean to slide a car and the engineer

00:41saying I can't see that? You know, the driver will say well I think the car moves on braking. The

00:46engineer says it doesn't do that really much. So, I am a little bit of the translator between the

00:50driver feedback and what the engineers see in the data. I've been a racer myself but I'm realistic.

00:56This is a data-driven sport. This is engineering. So, instinct plays a role when it comes about judging

01:01how a driver feels and judging about whether a strategy is realistic from the driver's point of

01:07view. And in that context, I'm helping the engineers that actually run the operation with the kind of

01:13more common sense approach. But it's that interaction, data and instinct that hopefully makes a team

01:18successful. The next one, Max Fried Rice. What happened to F1 team principles accusing everyone

01:25and their mother of cheating? Where is your rage? You think I'm not enraged anymore? I would see this

01:30as a success. You know, I've been very angry, very emotional at times because when we are being taken

01:36for a ride, I see this as my tribe. I want to protect the organization and the people and this is where I can

01:41emotionally react. Now, as a leader of the team, I should be also balanced and not oscillate between

01:47exuberance and depression. So, I'm trying to get better over the years and have less of that rage.

01:53Managers and trainers and coaches are very emotional about it in order to motivate their

01:59players, motivate the organization. So, we are a little bit all from the same cloth. We're sports

02:04people and we want the best for our organizations and for the team. We're also in a different era now.

02:08I think the team principles of the past were the ones running the organizations, being co-owners,

02:14stems from the Frank Williams days and Ron Dennis where it was smaller organizations and probably

02:19I'm the last dinosaur left of that old generation. Today is more common-sense, balanced engineers

02:25that run some of the team. The next one up is Wheel with Wobby. Who is currently the most underrated

02:31driver in F1? For me, it's clear it's George Russell. He's won everything in go-karting, in Formula

02:373, Formula 2. He came into the team next to Lewis Hamilton, the biggest sports star in our industry,

02:42if not one of the biggest overall. But George has grown so much as a driver in his skills and

02:47as a personality and I think today he's definitely right up there and someone that leads the team

02:53going forward. By Brendan White, do you think we've reached the ceiling of F1's global growth

02:58or is this just the beginning? I think neither of the two because the sport has grown over more

03:03than 70 years now and there were episodes where the incremental was huge and other phases where it

03:09kind of leveled off. But overall, the trend is always up. I think what we see now is that we had

03:16great racing, great rivalries, good personalities coming up, polarizing and controversial people also.

03:22Netflix certainly had a big part in the success, particularly in the United States. The social

03:28media activities of the drivers are much more than they used to be in the past and I think all of that

03:34kind of made us grow very strong. Our strongest growing audience base is young females 15 to 24.

03:41Total female fan base is 42%, believe it or not. And I think that it's quite balanced between the

03:47hardcore fans of the past that love the loud, roaring engines and all of the new generation,

03:52the Gen Z's that follow it with great interest from the free practice sessions all the way to the race.

03:58Now, I'm always seeing the world in a half empty class perspective rather than half full and we need

04:04to be continuing to handle the sport with great care. We must never believe that this is the real

04:09deal, this is so successful and it's going to continue forever. The Apple deal taking the rights

04:14in the US, which is fantastic for the sport. So we need to be really aware that we have a great thing

04:19at our hands and it needs to be entertaining, it needs to be unpredictable and that's what we always try

04:25to calibrate in the right way. So the next question, Yogi V88 asks, how is a typical Formula One team

04:32setup? The typical setup is that we are divided into three entities. One is producing the engines,

04:38that's about 1,200 people. The other one, which is all chassis related items, it's in principle the

04:44same size. And then there is the race team itself, which is around 150 people that travel to the races

04:50and are basically deploying the product and that includes the drivers. So what you see on television

04:57is only the race team. So it's literally the tip of the iceberg and most of the performance is being

05:03done in the factories. Next up, Rio Garden asks, what does an F1 team principal actually do? So as a team

05:10principal, I have responsibility not only for the racing team, but all of the wider organization. We're about

05:161,200 people and it's not only technical, it is also the commercial side, legal, finance, HR, IT. And

05:24obviously I'm in charge of doing that in a way around people that run racing cars. Josh Hamilton,

05:30a question for the F1 gives, is team principle the same thing as crew chief? Formula One is a bit weird

05:35in that sense because a team principle is what you would see in American sports as the president,

05:40the CEO, the coach, the trainer and the crew chief. So it's all within our roles. Now obviously our

05:49organizations have grown from back in the day 100 people to 2000 people that are dedicated to these

05:54roles. But fundamentally the responsibility of the team principle is to look after all of these. So

06:00there is no clear, let's say, cut between a CEO, US style sports team and the sporting director or the

06:08coach is what we do as team principals. From Pickle Shrimp, why do Mercedes race engineers,

06:14strategists and Toto sit inside the garage during races? So this is a little bit of a legacy

06:20situation. In the previous setups of teams, the team principal would sit on the pit wall to oversee

06:25the pit lane, to oversee what's happening on the main straight. We don't use stopwatches and we don't

06:30look at cars that are passing by, but it's kind of remained there. I have decided to change it for myself,

06:36not to sit on the pit wall, but to be in the garage. So you can see me standing in the middle

06:41island center console. So I can see the left and the right side of the garage and that gives me the

06:46best possible overview. The mechanics refer to it as the fantasy island because engineers and myself,

06:51we dream stuff up there rather than doing the hard work. So where I sit, I basically have a few data

06:57channels that I look at. I can follow old timing, the comparison to the other drivers. I have charts and

07:03overlays that I look at, what are our cornering speeds looking like compared to the opposition.

07:08I'm seeing GPS data, how the cars zoom around the track. So there's plenty of information. I'm also

07:14speaking to many engineers. My intercom channel has about 30 people that I listen to and it's a little

07:20bit like an airplane. So you get used to hearing voices out of the chaos. That is a big part of

07:25deciding what the strategy needs to do, being a partner for some of the engineers and challenging them.

07:31This question is from Remy Berksma. What's the toughest decision you made this season and also

07:36the easiest? Some of the tough and easy decisions, you know, they happen outside of the track. I'm

07:41responsible to running quite a large organization and when it comes about taking decisions on an

07:46organizational structure, telling people that maybe we should change their role or maybe not have

07:51them anymore. That is always really difficult, especially when some of the people have been with

07:56you on a journey for quite a long time. And equally, I really enjoy having conversations

08:00with the engineers, the drivers, the marketing people when growing the sport together. So

08:05it's mostly the human interaction with all its difficult aspects of discussions and all of the

08:10positive ones. Rafakil28, a simple question. How many hours of sleep do you get a night? The job of

08:17team manager seems like a job you can easily practice 24-7. Now, I think sleep matters for most

08:21of all and we don't get a lot of sleep. We travel a lot. I did more than 550 hours of airplane last year

08:28through the various time zones, but that comes with the job. So I'm trying to get my seven to eight

08:33hours sleep. I try to sleep whenever I'm tired, you know, put me on a plane, I'll sleep. And when

08:38I'm back in Europe, I try to have a strict regime. I'm not a morning person. So for me, it's no meetings

08:43before 10 o'clock. And in the same way, I stay very long. I go to the gym at eight o'clock in the evening,

08:48have dinner and get these hours of sleeping and you should do the same. So the next one is from

08:53Shaflapagus. What's the most important psychological trait a driver or engineer needs to thrive

08:58under pressure? I think pressure needs to be your comfort zone in a way. There is no hiding. This

09:04is a sport where you constantly operate with immense pressure. You know, I'm always laughing

09:11a bit when companies tell us we need to report four times a year in our earnings calls and it's

09:16difficult for a long-term strategy deployment. And I'm thinking we are reporting 24 times a year and

09:21we're only as good as our last race. So it goes from hero to zero and the other way around. One weekend

09:27is the Mercedes dominance continues and the next weekend this total should leave the team because

09:31they're losing all the time. So this is the pressure environment we find ourselves. Now,

09:35the drivers have gotten used to it because they have been go-karting since they are six. So it's

09:39almost like the normal state and only the ones who can sustain that pressure will eventually make it

09:45into Formula One. It's not only talent and the same on the managerial side. If pressure is something

09:51that you don't enjoy, maybe having a role that is not at the forefront of the race team, it's better for

09:56you. So we're all different personalities. We're all different in terms of strengths and weaknesses

10:00and we're trying to position the individuals in their kind of field of competence. Sid Barker 10 asks,

10:06what are the biggest challenges you faced when running the Mercedes in one team

10:10and how you and your team overcame those challenges? Like what is your approach to problem solving?

10:15It's all about the human. We won eight world championship titles in a row and that hasn't been

10:19done in any other sport. You know, the Boston Celtics will claim they did it in the NBA,

10:23but obviously that's a regional championship only. Just joking, obviously. But our sport is

10:29engineering. Our sport is data, but data don't take decisions. Humans do. And being able to set up a

10:35framework for those high performing individuals, being authentic and taking an interest in the

10:41individual. What is it that I can do to make you perform better? I can't design an aerodynamic surface,

10:46but I try to spend some time with the guy who can. And I hope that this trickles down in the

10:51organization that we look after our people whilst acknowledging that this is the most difficult

10:56environment that you could possibly operate. It's Formula One. It's the pinnacle of motor racing.

11:00Random Citizen, can someone explain to a new F1 fan why Mercedes is such a dominant team?

11:05Now, first of all, we don't feel any sense of entitlement to be a dominant team. We have been lucky

11:11having had the right people in our organization because it's a human sport as well, whilst there is all of the

11:16engineering side. It's humans in the car and outside of the car. And I think we have such a great group

11:21of individuals that over the many years has grown, but has also changed. We've had very good years.

11:27We've had more difficult ones, but we've always been part of the top game. Eight consecutive world

11:32championships. We finished second and third, unfortunately fourth one time, but we've always

11:37won races. And maybe that's why the perception is that we are a dominant team. And obviously Mercedes,

11:42it's the best car brand in the world, but we have to be kept on our toes. We must never stop pushing

11:47the limits because in this sport, it could quickly fail. So this question is from the Ask Formula One

11:52subreddit. How has AI or predictive analytics actually changed how you approach strategy? How has it evolved?

11:59So of course, AI is an area that is going stronger and stronger in Formula One because we are data-driven

12:06business. We have used this a long time. But having said that, it's really difficult to model the driver.

12:12To model the human with all of its infinite sensors, we're playing through 10,000 possible scenarios

12:19when it comes to race strategy. And like Mike Tyson said, everybody has a strategy until he gets

12:24punched in the nose. So this is how racing pans out. You can discuss all kinds of scenarios and then

12:29there's the human in the car and he reacts differently to what you expected. So I love that.

12:34Some Finnish Meteor have any of the F1 team principles ever driven one of their cars? Many of us have been

12:41racing drivers, some better, some worse. But I decided once I quit professional racing that

12:46I wouldn't drive our own F1 cars. I have my own expectations what performance would look like.

12:52And I'm 53 now and I wouldn't want to see myself not meeting my own expectations. But there are some

12:57colleagues of mine that enjoy doing that. Maybe not zooming around the tracks like pros would do,

13:02maybe more snail speed, but they still do that for fun. Others play golf or paddle. For me,

13:08it's rather trying to do the best for the F1 team and certainly driving our cars. That wouldn't add

13:13any performance to what we do. Wait, could you name who the colleagues are?

13:17No, then I'd really put them into the water. They know. This one is from Winter Wolf.

13:24If you were to design, customize your own F1 car without limitations, how would you design it to

13:29make it stand out? Well, there's a technical aspect. What I would design is the fastest car that could

13:35potentially go around the track on this planet. I would do fans below the car where you have suction,

13:40so the car is literally sucked onto the ground. Big wings and a huge 12-cylinder engine that roars.

13:46I would make them light, nimble. When it comes to the design, you know, we are the silver arrows.

13:51It's quite an interesting historical aspect. The Mercedes in F1 have been white. And in one race,

13:57the car was too heavy. So they had to take off the white paint down to the bare aluminum to make the

14:03minimum weight. And that's the color that stayed with us since then. But since Lewis joined the team,

14:08we stand for diversity and equality. And Lewis suggested, let's make the car black. And so today,

14:13the modern Formula 1 Mercedes car is black and silver. So this is a design that I would, in any case,

14:18maintain for my dream car and lots of Mercedes stars and the AMG logo, the Chevron. So this is

14:23everything for today. I hope you learned a lot. Thanks for watching. F1 Team Principle Support.

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