Wolff says Maldonado’s 2012 win led to his Mercedes role

Pastor Maldonado’s surprise win for Williams at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix brought Toto Wolff into talks with Mercedes that, in Wolff’s account, ended with an offer to run the team. A Mercedes board member invited Wolff to Stuttgart after the race.

Wolff was then an executive and shareholder at Williams. Maldonado beat Fernando Alonso from pole in Barcelona for the only grand prix victory of his Formula 1 career. Mercedes had returned as a works team in 2010 and had won only once by then: Nico Rosberg’s victory in China earlier in 2012. Wolff recalled the board member asking how Williams could win a race while Mercedes could not do better. He recounted the episode on the Cheeky Pint podcast with Stripe co-founder John Collison.

After seeing Mercedes’ figures, Wolff said he asked what its F1 programme was meant to achieve. The answer, he recalled, was world championships. He told the board he was aiming for a top-six finish at Williams on what he believed were the same budgets. The board, he said, responded that Mercedes spent 100 million more. Wolff recalled pointing to Mercedes’ spending on Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, contrasting those drivers with Williams’ pay driver from Venezuela, Pastor Maldonado, who had brought substantial backing to the team. He said the executives did not like the comparison.

Mercedes later returned with an offer for Wolff to run the team. Wolff said its executives believed a corporate-run F1 operation did not work and wanted a more entrepreneurial leader empowered to make decisions on the spot. He initially declined because he held shares in Williams; Mercedes then offered to help him buy into the team. Wolff joined Mercedes at the start of 2013. The team went on to win eight consecutive constructors’ championships from 2014 to 2021.