Mercedes, Wolff enjoys Kimi: “But now don’t make too much noise for him in Italy”

Toto Wolff hasn’t been on a Formula 1 podium to personally collect the trophy reserved for the winning team of a Grand Prix for about ten years. “I don’t usually like doing it because it’s always difficult to find a balance between one part of the garage and the other, when, as in this case, one driver celebrates the victory and the other is very disappointed with the result.” The occasion, however, was special. Because Kimi’s results are also, and above all, a personal success for Toto Wolff. “In reality I couldn’t avoid it because the member of the board I wanted to go with had to take a flight – said the Mercedes team principal, laughing – and the team told me “you have to go, it’s the home race”. But while Toto maintains his position as team leader with extreme elegance and seriousness, without preferences or inclinations in this World dualism now profiled among its drivers, the proud look with which he watched Kimi Antonelli climb for the first time on the top step of the podium in Monte Carlo, worth more than a thousand words.

the bet

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There’s everything about the relationship that Toto and Kimi have built over the years, the challenges they’ve faced and the trust they’ve placed together in this project. Even when, Wolff confesses, it seemed madness to everyone to put an eighteen-year-old in a Formula 1 Mercedes to replace Lewis Hamilton: “There were difficult moments, even in the minor formulas, but that’s normal. It’s all part of a driver’s growth path. I remember, for example, people telling me, after Formula 2, that it would be too early to make him debut in Formula 1, or others who said that it would be too early to immediately put him in a big team like Mercedes. But we have always believed in our slowly.” A crazy idea, according to some, but which today gives a clear image of a generational talent at the helm of the drivers’ championship in his second year in the top series: “We wanted to allow Kimi to have a year of development and growth, knowing that he would make mistakes but that he would also grow a lot. We knew that the results would come and it was important to be ready for this season, with the technical change that we faced this year. And we are seeing it today, with what Kimi managed to do.”

the weekend

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An undertaking, that of winning the Monte Carlo Grand Prix at the age of nineteen at the end of a perfect weekend, which began on Saturday with Kimi’s pole position: “He did something great – explained Wolff -, in Q3 I saw Leclerc flying in the swimming pool section, it was an extraordinary lap, and then Verstappen arrived and beat him. We were following Kimi’s lap on the live GPS and it seemed impossible to do it, then out of nowhere, in the last two corners, he made the difference and took the pole. Looking at the onboard after the session, it was just incredible. That lap was incredible.” A solidity, and a speed, which Antonelli then proposed again in the race, managing to finish a difficult Grand Prix in the best possible way: “There were many pitfalls and many things could go wrong, as in the case of some of our rivals. But Kimi was great, especially on the restart. We were surprised ourselves by his speed, the times he set during the laps were two seconds faster than the McLarens and a very solid second faster than the Ferraris. It looked like a Swiss watch. Why it happened on a track that we didn’t consider among our strengths before the weekend, I honestly don’t know.” Now, however, we need to remain calm, with an invitation that Wolff sends to all the Italian fans but also to his own driver, well aware of how much road still separates him from the end of this championship: “There is a good advantage, it’s true. But let’s keep our feet on the ground because the year is still long. Don’t make too much noise for him there in Italy, we continue with great humility because the races can go badly. There is the dream, of course, but also a lot of work still to be done”. Step by step, as Wolff always did with Kimi. Knowing that they had something great in their hands like that boy who Toto himself, upon the Italian’s entry into F.1, defined as “a generational talent”.