http://www.bild.de/sport/motorsport...icher-wird-haug-nachfolger-28175870.bild.html Sensation at Mercedes! According to information from BILD.de the Austrian Toto Wolff (41) Successor of motorsport boss Norbert Haug . (60) at Daimler The former racing driver was previously shareholder and chairman of the British racing team Williams. After Niki Lauda (head of the Formula-1-Supervisory) Wolff is the second Austrian, who will now have the final say at Mercedes. Wolff is already tied in with Mercedes. He owns shares in the Mercedes DTM team HWA. Now he gets the right one as an investor in a Formula 1 team Mercedes. According to information from the Austrian BILD.de should be presented in the coming days, possibly on the verge of DTM tests at Valencia (Tuesday to Thursday). One thing is certain: Wolff will also deal with the Formula 1 team with the two factories in the UK and responsible for the entire motorsports. Wolff is married with Scottish racer Susie Wolff (formerly Stoddart). After 20 years, Wolff's predecessor Norbert Haug was after the season as motorsport director of Mercedes resigned. Reason: Lack of success. In three years, the Formula 1 Silver Arrows team managed only one victory (Nico Rosberg in China 2012), landed in fifth place last season the team standings. Lewis Hamilton is committed as successor to Michael Schumacher one of the superstars of Formula 1. The Englishman is to be presented Monday at Mercedes in Stuttgart as a new team member. **Williams to get some Mercedes power down the line?
Toto Wolff does sound like a very intelligent person and knows how to talk on a driver level in my opinion. Saw this on Wikipedia: "Wolff is co-owner of a sportmanagement company with Mika Häkkinen and was involved in the management of upcoming racing drivers such as Bruno Spengler, Alexandre Premat and Valtteri Bottas." Bottas to Mercedes if Rosberg isn't up to scratch anyone? Let the rumours commence! *Oh and Susie is hot. (For Manny's benefit ) Sign up into the forum for all those guests reading this post
Sounds like he is cutting ties with Williams more like: ("The former racing driver was previously shareholder and chairman of the British racing team Williams.") Now that is a snap up by Mercedes in my opinion.
I'll believe it when the source is not bild, a German friend of mine said that most of the time their sport stories are a load of rubbish. Be funny if he takes his wife there with him to become test driver, Hamilton will be cursing his luck that De la Rosa chose Ferrari!
Lol Susie as Mercedes test driver, crazy news floating around today. Glock and now this. 2013 is the year of MASSIVE changes.
Lets be honest do test drivers actually do anything? I agree Manny, I blame that damn Lewis for causing all this carnage!
In the case of Susie Wolff, my patience? She's 30, which whilst not over the hill, is too young to be a rookie in F1. In 7 DTM seasons, she's averaged 0.6 points per season, the average of all her team-mates in that period is 12.6, and that includes some who were truly shocking. If I remember from a brief flick through her stats, she's never beaten a team-mate, and she's only equalled Rookie team-mates when they've both failed to score all season. As far as I'm aware, her single seat experience is 4 seasons of Formula Renault, yielding 4 podiums in total, and 2 F3 races. She must be able to give phenomenal feedback to be an asset to Williams with that kind of experience. I'm not sexist, or in any way against women having a chance in F1, but I am against someone who appears to be woefully under-qualified for a job being given it on the strength of her marriage. I'm not a fan of pay-drivers in general, but in most cases in F1 at the moment, the driver in question has at least won races and challenged for titles in competitive lower series. Take Gutiérrez, he's won GP3, finished in the top 3 of GP2, having improved during his time there, and he's only 21. Yes he's got money behind him, but he's at least got out there and shown he has some talent. The last instance I can find of Wolff having won a race is karting. For me, a test-driver either fills the Bottas, Gutiérrez, Bianchi role of being young and up-coming, so testing is to gain experence, or the Paffett, De La Rosa, Gene role of providing excellent feedback, and therefore being useful to the team in aiding development. I don't see Wolff filling either of these categories.
Agreed about Bild, but Autosport have reported it now as well: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105206
I reckon if Rosberg doesn't match up to Lewis for these next 2 years they will get shot I reckon. A Seb - Lewis team is still on the cards for Mercedes in the future I reckon if they prove faster than RBR and Ferrari. If they cant get Seb they will pinch Bottas or Hulk.
