Toto Wolff says he will manage the situation in F1 2024 in terms of information sharing and also handling Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
For the first time in years, Wolff is in an unique situation where he will have to manage information sharing after Hamilton decided to leave Mercedes for Ferrari. Even though there is trust on the Brit, from purely business point of view it is different.
From that end, just like Hamilton did not inform on discussions behind the scenes, Mercedes too have the right to withheld information which he could take away to Ferrari. The management will also be between his drivers on preference side.
Of course, there will be a notion that Russell is preferred over Hamilton, but Wolff notes that he wouldn’t go too extreme even though for him Mercedes’ interest is bigger than drivers’ own. The Austrian expects questions over unfair treatment in 2024.
“What I’ve always tried to do as a team principal, and all of us at Mercedes, is to be transparent, and fair,” said Wolff. “And nothing’s going to change in that respect in 2024. We owe it to our principles and our racing intent, how we go about, and we will respect that. And I will be sure that the drivers will respect it.
“In terms of the development going forward, I think this is something which we need to look at. The regulations stay pretty much to stay the same. And when it comes to 2025, we will evaluate later in the season, what it means in terms of technical information, but that’s not something that bothers me at all.
“We have engineers that leave us and go to other teams and the notice periods are sometimes as short as six months. So I don’t have any doubt in Lewis’ integrity, in terms of sharing information, and in that respect, we want to make sure that this is a successful season, successful season for both drivers, and a successful season for Mercedes and all of us will give our utmost to achieve that.
“Definitely a new situation to manage, for followers of the team. But it is something that, when you when you focus on the really short term and this is the racing team, that’s being deployed to run the product, that doesn’t have a big impact on everything that’s happening going forward on the development side.
“So, I’m always interested in to new and challenging situations and balancing 2024 Mercedes interests versus 2025 driver interests. It is something that we will openly discuss at the beginning how to manage that and for sure come to do a good outcome between us,” summed up Wolff.
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