Wolff stunned: 'Why did he not come to Mercedes?'

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14:00, 09 Oct 2024

Nicole Mulder is Managing Editor at GPblog and a specialist in Formula 1 and MotoGP. With years of experience and permanent FIA accreditation at Grands Prix worldwide, she delivers reliable coverage and insights based on direct access to drivers and the F1 paddock.

Otmar Szafnauer, former Formula 1 team boss of Alpine and Force India (now Aston Martin), has shared an interesting anecdote about Toto Wolff. He says the Mercedes team boss was confused when he heard that the customer team had pulled a big name from Red Bull Racing.

"Were 280 people when I started, 408 when I left. So I hired some people. All of them, I hired personally," Szafnauer said on the High Performance podcast. "Together, we assessed areas of competency that a Formula 1 team required that we didn’t have. Then we went out to recruit the best people that we could in those areas."

Why was Wolff baffled?

"How do you get good people to leave Red Bull and come to Force India? You've got to make it a good place to work. I called Toto and I don't know what we were talking about but I said 'we've got this senior aerodynamicist guru coming from Red Bull to join us'. And he was like 'what? Why is he not coming to Mercedes?'"

He continued: "He couldn't believe that a guy from Red Bull at a senior level would actually entertain going to Force India, but that's because we had a reputation of, go there, it's a good place to work'. I remember people telling me that Toto would walk around in the pit lane and look to see who had the nicest garage set up. You could see from the pit lane into everybody's garages. He would walk and benchmark the best. I think it was Red Bull at the time."

"And he would say to his sporting director, Ron Meadows, I want something better than that. Which is great. And he did that. And that translates into a lot of other things too. But like I said, the one thing that I wanted, at Force India, because I knew we didn’t have the money to do those things; even if we wanted a better garage, you can’t, is a good place to work, and that was our differentiating factor," Szafnauer said.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Kimi Antonelli Kimi Antonelli	MercedesMER	292
2	George Russell George Russell	MercedesMER	211
3	Lewis Hamilton Lewis Hamilton	FerrariFER	191
4	Lando Norris Lando Norris	McLarenMCL	186
5	Charles Leclerc Charles Leclerc	FerrariFER	167
6	Max Verstappen Max Verstappen	Red Bull RacingRBR	145
7	Oscar Piastri Oscar Piastri	McLarenMCL	120
8	Isack Hadjar Isack Hadjar	Red Bull RacingRBR	71
9	Liam Lawson Liam Lawson	Racing BullsRCB	59
10	Pierre Gasly Pierre Gasly	AlpineALP	41
11	Arvid Lindblad Arvid Lindblad	Racing BullsRCB	31
12	Franco Colapinto Franco Colapinto	AlpineALP	27
13	Oliver Bearman Oliver Bearman	HaasHAA	18
14	Gabriel Bortoleto Gabriel Bortoleto	AudiAUD	10
15	Nico Hulkenberg Nico Hulkenberg	AudiAUD	7
16	Carlos Sainz Carlos Sainz	WilliamsWIL	6
17	Alexander Albon Alexander Albon	WilliamsWIL	5
18	Esteban Ocon Esteban Ocon	HaasHAA	3
19	Fernando Alonso Fernando Alonso	Aston MartinAST	3
20	Yuki Tsunoda Yuki Tsunoda	Racing BullsRCB	1
21	Lance Stroll Lance Stroll	Aston MartinAST	0
22	Valtteri Bottas Valtteri Bottas	CadillacCAD	0
23	Sergio Perez Sergio Perez	CadillacCAD	0

Wolff stunned: 'Why did he not come to Mercedes?'

Why was Wolff baffled?

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