Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is said to harbour regret over his handling of its infamous Formula 1 rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, according to unnamed team members.
Mercedes has seated some incredible drivers in its ranks, from Michael Schumacher to Lewis Hamilton, and now the newer generations of talent in George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Dominating from the hybrid era’s beginning, Wolff has overseen contentious title fights year after year until 2022.
The new downforce regulations brought trouble for the Brackley team, resigning it to fight for podiums, rather than titles.
However, looking back on the years of success in the sport, with back-to-back titles from 2014 to 2021, there is one stretch of time that clearly stands out from the rest.
The close and brutal fight between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton brought the team to the brink as the two went from childhood best friends to keen rivals and, even enemies, on the track.
For Rosberg, the hunt for his maiden title brought keen rituals and attempts at psychological warfare.
Rosberg changed his routine. He cut out cycling and imposed a strict diet to lose weight. He had his wife slept in a separate rooms so he didn’t wake her in his endless early mornings.
He would even speak German to his engineers, a way to keep his British team-mate from understanding decisions made on his side of the garage.
Though Rosberg finally succeeded in his goal in 2016, the battle waged from 2014, amid a series of contentious incidents and trading of Grand Prix victories.
Looking back on the battles, journalists Julianne Cerasoli and Frederic Ferret, speaking on the F1 Nation pocast, alleged Wolff’s regret regarding the way that he handled the fight, as apparently told to them by Mercedes staff.
“I was speaking at Mercedes earlier, and they were telling me that Toto regrets the way he managed the team in 2016, because it was the same situation,” Cerasoli explained.
“So, the championship was won by the team, and they tried to impose a lot of rules between the drivers.”
Is the Wolff Mercedes lesson one for McLaren to learn?
The situation with Mercedes then has been likened to McLaren now, coming under criticism after the Italian Grand Prix.
The papaya squad received scrutiny for its decision to ask Oscar Piastri to let through his title rival and teammate, Lando Norris, after the latter suffered a slow pit stop.
Norris was initially ahead of Piastri. The Brit was asked who should pit first, and Norris agreed to pit second if it mitigated the opportunity of an undercut.
However, as Norris pulled into the pits, he had a four-second pit stop, which put him behind his team-mate after all.
The Australian was asked to move aside, which he did. But it raised questions over what constitutes a ‘racing’ incident rather than a strategic call.
Cerasoli compared it to the 2016 situation, suggesting Wolff harbours remorse for how the intra-team rivalry escalated.
“No, when this happens, try to cover every scenario possible, and that didn’t end up well, because they just couldn’t cover everything,” she said.
“Then he was over-managed to fight between the two drivers, and that’s one of his regrets from his old days.”
“But again, different people, you never know, they know better than us the people who they are managing and how it works.” Cerasoli said.
Ferret noted that the dynamics between Norris and Piastri are wildly different to those between Rosberg and Hamilton.
“But neither Lewis nor Nico were like Lando or Oscar or so,” he said.
“Nico has been all his life obsessed with winning against Lewis. He was always beaten, and he was beaten harshly in 2015, after going to the last round in 2014.
“Then, when he saw the opportunity. I can tell you that there were no more rules, and you could see that it was going ugly. It was not only on the track.”
It differs largely from the situation at McLaren, where Norris and Piastri at least appear friendly as well as respectful on and off the track.
But if Mercedes’ golden era is anything to go by, a tense title fight could increase the tension between the two.
READ MORE – McLaren issued ‘assassin’ threat in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri F1 title contest
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