“Annoyance On Myself”: Toto Wolff Takes the Blame Amid Lewis Hamilton-Mercedes 2022 Pains

Ever since Toto Wolff has taken the team principal’s role at Mercedes, all he has seen are victories. Each season the team has won the constructors’ championship. Even last year when Lewis Hamilton missed out on the drivers’ championship in a controversial manner, Mercedes won the constructors’ championship with ease. This year, though, Toto tasted defeat for the first time. How is he coping with it?

After a long wait since 2013, Red Bull Racing seems to be on a resurgence. The Austrian team hasn’t given their rivals any chance of redemption. Such has been their dominance that they wrapped up the drivers’ championship with 4 and the constructors’ championship with 3 races to go.

How is Toto Wolff dealing with his first winless season?

Despite giving it their all, Mercedes hasn’t been able to deliver a win in 2022. They have shown signs of improvement, but a race win still eludes the UK-based team. Appearing with his wife Susie on the podcast Performance People, Toto revealed how he is dealing with his first failed season in Formula 1.

Toto was asked how much this year hurt him. He answered, “Hurt? Not at all. I think I’ve been through moments in my life that hurt. This one is more of an annoyance, you can say. But annoyance not in a way that somebody else is responsible for us not performing. It’s an annoyance on myself. And it’s an annoyance on all of us in the team that we took decisions that were simply wrong. Could we have seen this? Maybe some.”

Read More: Toto Wolff Expresses Admiration for Lewis Hamilton’s Classy Gestures After ‘Lion’ Outbursts: “He Has a Big Heart”

“It is thinking about how did we react. It’s the learning process. Was the learning process with the speed that it could have been? Probably yes. But you kind of set your own expectations in yourself and not achieving them is simply annoying. But it’s important to not have any kind of sense of entitlement either. We don’t have that in the team,” Wolff said.

Toto admits to having doubts in previous seasons

Toto and Mercedes have had unprecedented dominance in Formula 1. No other team, in the history of the sport, has won 8 consecutive constructors’ championships. However, the Mercedes boss remained skeptical even then and feared losing everything after each race.

“You have good races but fundamentally, it’s a professional situation. It is not a personal situation. We won’t be losing any sleep in things going wrong. It’s more like you’re really digging deep and you try to understand what is it. Because it’s a state of mind that you don’t want to be in.”

Watch This Story: How a Kitchen Rendezvous Prevented Lewis Hamilton-Toto Wolff “Divorce”

With a man like him on the helm, who has the hunger for winning, the resurgence of Mercedes can never be far away. Couple that with the skills of Lewis Hamilton, and there can be no doubts. This season may have been a dull affair with one team showing utter dominance, but with rivals like the Silver Arrows in the fray for next season, a thrilling competition might just be brewing.