A close friend of Lewis Hamilton’s ready to give it all up? It certainly seemed that way not too long ago according to a colleague within the Mercedes fold, a founding member of the Mercedes AMG division. Toto Wolff is the Mercedes team manager, but he also wears other hats. Lewis Hamilton’s boss is also a shareholder in his team and sometimes plays the role of psychologist, or tries to. This overload of responsibilities has led him to question his future in the paddock. The Austrian wanted to stop everything just four years ago.

Toto Wolff is a successful businessman. The Austrian has fulfilled the dream of many, as he is not only the head of the Mercedes F1 team, but also its co-owner. Lewis Hamilton’s boss works his guts out and this sometimes pushes him over the edge say colleagues within the sport and in 2019, he more or less quit.

“He was really, really upset..”

“This was always meant to be a project. It’s like my investments. You buy and you sell. Selling the shares is the reason why I’m doing all this,” Toto Wolff confided.

And this pressure was becoming increasingly difficult for the Austrian to bear and he was about to sell his Mercedes AMG Formula 1 team shares in 2019 and step down from his position.

“He was really, really upset. He was saying, ‘What do I do? And what do I do and why?’ I told him, ‘Toto, it’s your life. You have to do what you want to do in your heart,’” revealed Hans Werner Aufrecht in a statement reported by Nextgen-Auto, the French sports media outlet.

The 84 year old, and as yet unretired Hans Werner Aufrecht (born 28 December 1938 in Großaspach, Germany), was in 1967 along with Erhard Melcher one of the founders of AMG Engine Production and Development, a current subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz.

When the company and the name “AMG” was acquired by Mercedes-Benz in the late 1990s, he used his initials for the name of Mercedes’ official racing team.

“We said: ‘We want to stay like this’, Mercedes and I. Because in the end this team is more than just an investment for me,” added Toto Wolff to his friend and colleague.

“He’s a bit of a maniac”

Toto Wolff is also a workaholic. The Austrian does not count his hours, even on holiday.

“He’s a bit of a maniac,” says a friend of Wolff, the French cyclist Cédric Vasseur.

“Even on holiday he can’t completely switch off…” further admits James Vowles, former senior member of the Mercedes team.

“Honestly, he thinks too much, that’s his big problem. He tries to take a problem and think about it, turn it around, to a point where it’s just not possible,” he says. Lewis Hamilton can rest assured that Toto Wolff will not be leaving his post just yet.

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