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Wolff looks ahead to F1 title race
Rosberg leads Hamilton by 12 points
Race gets underway Sunday 1pm GMT
Ahead of the Formula One season climax in Abu Dhabi, Mercedes Executive Director Toto Wolff finds himself in a strange but fortunate position of both his drivers vying for the championship title.
How does he separate one from the other? The answer, quite simply, is that he doesn’t.
“I think both of them would deserve to win the title,” Wolff told CNN ahead of this season’s final race. “Nico because he has been such a fierce competitor to Lewis all those years and he had technical problems in 2014, for example.
“And on the other side, Lewis wasn’t very lucky this year with his engine problems in Malaysia. If he were to fight back and win the championship, that would be deserved as well.”
Wolff, himself a former racing driver, bought a share in Williams F1 in 2009, before leaving to join the Mercedes board in 2013. His team has been the dominant force of this season’s F1 championship.
Rosberg has the edge, leading his teammate by 12 points, and the German knows a podium finish will guarantee he wins his first world championship title.
For Hamilton, finishing anywhere except on the podium will mean the end of his reign.
The Brit got unlucky in Malaysia this year after technical problems forced him out of a race that ended in a rare Red Bull 1-2. It enabled his rival to open up a 23-point lead at the top of the championship, and his title chances have looked slim since.
Read: Hamilton and Rosberg are “opposites”
But after three successive wins, Hamilton has forced his way back into contention.
The pair have played out a tense rivalry throughout this season’s F1 championship that will culminate in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Wolff admits that the two drivers have divided the Mercedes garage – to good effect.
“First of all you have to acknowledge that there is a rivalry not only among the drivers but also among the two sides of the garages. The engineer and the mechanics, they very much see themselves as being with that one driver.
“That is a strength because you want them to be competitive, but on the other side it is a weakness. We have seen in teams in the past that that rivalry has grown into something negative for the team. With us it didn’t happen.
“I try to keep as neutral as possible, not trying to give too much away to one and not to the other. So the best is just to stand back and to watch them.”
Despite being on course to win its fifth and third successive F1 title, Wolff admits there’s been no time to relax and soak up the seasons’ success for Mercedes.
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“There is no such thing as enjoyment. We get to lean back after the season and reflect on what we have done. But then the mentality in the team is to really look at the things where we haven’t been so good and to try to work on those weaknesses.
“So I hope that one day, many years ahead, I might look back and think ‘that was quite a nice ride.’”