Wolff: In-house 2016 fight was more intense but 2021 had other challenges

Toto Wolff reckons the intensity in 2016 was far bigger for Mercedes than the F1 2021 fight, but the latter was tough in a different way.

Mercedes for the first time had a fight on their hands during the course of the 2021 F1 season albeit a different one than the last time in 2016. They did have some challenge from Ferrari in 2018 and 2019, but it didn’t end like how last year did.

While in 2016, the fight was in-house between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the 2021 tussle saw them against Red Bull and Max Verstappen. Both had its own challenges which Wolff acknowledges, but reckons the former had more intensity.

Keeping aside his less experience in 2016, the team as a whole had to keep the harmony in check while the animosity between the drivers grew, which did spiral out in the open. In 2021, since it was a ‘collective’ fight against a team, it was easier in that department.

Although it threw challenges like the multiple FIA checks and or on-track fights where Wolff had no control over. “I would say that the intensity of the situation was maybe more in 2016 because if you have a rivalry and a fight within the team, trying to manage the two sides of the garage and obviously not being one-sided but keeping everything transparent was very, very difficult,” he said.

“Also, for me, I was still very much in my junior year, so I don’t want to go back to the difficulties of that relationship or that situation there. There are many things I would do differently today and fight with Red Bull is just a fierce fight between teams and drivers that have done a really great job.

“But sometimes in the races the two or three drivers in the lead we were 45 seconds up the road, like being almost the whole field and this shouldn’t sound arrogant in any way but it shows the push all of us have done in order to win the championship. It’s probably a level that certainly in my years at Mercedes is unprecedented,” summed up Wolff.

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