Wolff sides with friend Marko: 'We share the same values'

For years, Toto Wolff (Mercedes' team boss) and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko didn't get on. The mutual irritation seems to have disappeared, and a friendship looks like it's forming between the two. Might they even collaborate in the future?

After the explosive ending to the 2021 season, the relationship between the two Austrians had become extremely poor. Since the turmoil within Red Bull Racing, Wolff and Marko have grown closer again.

Wolff told OE24: "We have become much closer now. Despite the rivalry, there are common values we stand for. After all the things that have happened in recent months (in the Red Bull case with Christian Horner), we have come to the conclusion that we think the same way," Wolff said.

Helmut Marko then also acknowledged that the relationship with Wolff had improved. "The tensions that were there in recent years are gone. I heard somewhere that we are now blood brothers, but that is clearly an exaggeration," Marko said. And almost as a matter of course - with the relationship between Marko and Wolff improving - stories of a move by Marko to Mercedes, and perhaps even with Max Verstappen joining him, immediately emerge.

In any case, Wolff would like to see Marko come in as 'the new Niki Lauda', the late motorsport legend was an advisor to Mercedes for many years. "That's nice. But that's all so far away. Our goal now is to get peace in the team and win the World Championship, which will be hard enough," was what Marko said in response to that wish from Wolff.