Toto Wolff acknowledges the absence of Niki Lauda’s guidance as Mercedes strives to enhance the performance of their W14.
The team is currently seeking solutions to their struggles at the start of 2023, after a difficult start to the season. Despite Lauda’s passing in 2019, he played a significant role in the team’s success during their dominant days.
Wolff has highlighted that his absence is felt during their ongoing struggles. Mercedes is facing a challenging start to the 2023 season, and Toto Wolff has conceded that they are missing the direction of their former non-executive chairman, Niki Lauda.
Lauda was an integral part of the team during their successful years until his untimely death in 2019. Wolff has emphasized that the team feels the absence of his valuable guidance as they attempt to overcome their current performance issues.
“Niki’s missed all those years because Niki always simplified things to really what mattered,” said Wolff.
“I’m having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned and the two of us worked well together in that sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the results but there are lots of nuances.
“This is a technical sport so maybe my role was to translate it in a way that we actually were able to execute it in the car design.
“But this is very simple: the stopwatch never lies, and we see on the data where we are missing and that needs to be corrected.”
According to Wolff, the board is backing the team completely despite their recent underwhelming performances. The team is aiming to enhance their prospects with upgrades in the upcoming early stages of the year.
“The people in charge in Mercedes and in INEOS, they are high performance individuals,” he explained, when asked by RacingNews365.com.
“Even before business or in sports, we have all been through up and downs and there is so much support from them in order to get us back on track.
“I couldn’t wish for neither Jim [Ratcliffe] nor Ola [Källenius], or all the others that are associated with this, to wish for better support.”
