Spare a thought for Toto Wolff. Think losing Abu Dhabi 2021 was bad? This, surely, is worse. It’s not just what happened, Lewis Hamilton signing a multi-year contract that will see him leave Brackley for Maranello next year, but the way.
The story seemingly leaked to the Italian media, the super-controlled Wolff apparently taken completely unawares, then being forced call an emergency meeting to address the troops, before being left to deal with the fallout. Which is considerable. So before we look at Lewis at Ferrari, let’s look at what he leaves behind at the team with whom he won six of his seven titles.
There won’t be chaos, pandemonium or anything close to it because that’s not the way Wolff’s team rolls, but there will be very great concern and an overwhelming desire to get back on the front foot as soon as possible. Mercedes is a team whose greatest strength has lain in its meticulous approach to everything. That is how it managed to win titles even when it didn’t have the best car on the grid, and how it could come from down and out at the start of 2022 with a car that was wrong in the most fundamental way, and still somehow turn it into a race winner by the season’s end.
