Toto Wolff says if set a target in front of Lewis Hamilton, he will go for it, as he reveals of table they have with logos until 2050.
After an up and down season in F1 2023, some started to question if Hamilton had in him to still fight and secure the eighth championship especially when Mercedes are trying to push themselves up to pose a challenge to Red Bull in both the standings.
As of now, Mercedes are behind in the pack fighting against Ferrari, McLaren and even Aston Martin/Alpine in some rounds. They are forced for a concept change in 2024 after things haven’t worked out whether in 2022 and or the recently ended 2023 F1 season.
But Wolff has full belief on Hamilton that he has the ability and when given target, whether it is race wins and or championships, he has in him to deliver. “From Lewis’ perspective he had a bad weekend in Abu Dhabi,” the Mercedes chief stated. “That doesn’t do anything on him being the greatest driver in the world, and if we are able to give him a car, he will be fighting for a World Championship.
“I have no doubt. It’s clear when you have a Formula One car like we have now, you are never at ease with it and you have good weekends and bad weekends. But whenever we have seen that Lewis has someone in his target in front of him and it was about winning the race, then the real Lewis comes alive.
“We just need to give that to him,” summed up Wolff, who then went on to reveal that Mercedes has a room in Brackley where they have a table which has logos and badges from 1958 to until 2050 season, which means they have 27 more chances to fill those.
They have a long-term perspective at the moment since they are in the chasing pack. “Somebody told me a funny sentence about a long-term perspective: we have a board in our factory that shows all the Constructors’ World Championships since 1958 and the table goes until 2050 and we have the logos and badges of the different years,” Wolff said.
“There is 27 open with empty badges, and I would like to look back in 20 years and say there are many more Mercedes stars. When you are retrospective, and I hate retrospective views, but when you look back 20 years and consider that decade it was second, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, third, second.
“When you look at it from that perspective, you kind of say that was OK. Now, from a micro view there is one guy [Verstappen] who won 19 races [in 2023]. So that is of course not good enough,” summed up Wolff.
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