Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of Mercedes, recently revealed that he fell out of love with Formula 1 in the closing moments of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Towards the end of the season finale, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen raced to secure the championship title.
However, former race director Michael Masi called for victory to essentially be handed over to the Dutchman, despite Hamilton leading the majority of the race. Wolff described this rather unfair decision as “incomprehensible”, especially since Mercedes’ protests against the final result were ultimately rejected.
In a new interview with The Times, the Austrian said:
“At the end of the race, one individual made decisions that weren’t written anywhere in the regulations and were so drastic that they made the result unbelievable. That’s a moment when you don’t love the sport anymore… The principle of fairness has been violated.”
Discussing Michael Masi’s eventual retirement from the sport as race director after the season, he added:
“The FIA took the man out of the job because it was human error… But now it’s done and dusted. I still think about it a lot, but not with anger. It is simply incomprehensible how it came about.â€
Mercedes team boss is moving the family from Great Britain to Monaco for safety reasons
Toto Wolff revealed he had decided to relocate his family to Monaco from Oxford, near the Mercedes base in Brackley, UK, after facing a “security issue”. He also said he intends to send his son to an “international school.” Several F1 drivers including Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton currently live in Monaco.
In an interview with The Times, the Mercedes boss said:
“We moved to Monaco because we had a security issue in the UK and because we wanted to educate our son in an international school.”
“I live in Oxford during the week and travel back at the weekend. I like being in Oxford and I like working. I usually stay in the office until 8 p.m., then in the evenings I go to the gym, eat dinner, read a book and go to bed.”
Toto Wolff has three children and is married to the former professional racer and CEO of Venturi Racing Susie Wolff back in 2011.
