‘Angry’ Toto Wolff will fire Mercedes employees after Saudi Arabian GP

Ex-Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff might fire some of his engineers following the Germans’ disappointing start to 2023, with the team having since decided to ditch their current concept.



Wolff watched on helplessly at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix as Mercedes slipped to fourth in the pecking order, following a sensational winter break by Aston Martin.



Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had to settle for fifth and seventh at the Bahrain International Circuit, with this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix having started no better for Hamilton.



Russell and Hamilton finished in P4 and P5, respectively, in Jeddah.







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Despite Russell’s strong qualifying, Mercedes are set to make drastic changes to the W14, with Wolff having revealed that their car will soon “look completely different”.



“I think in five, six or seven races, our car will look completely different,” Wolff revealed.



Wolff seemingly blamed the team’s engineers for their poor start to the season in Bahrain, with the Austrian having questioned the concept that they chose.



This went down badly with former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan, who labelled Wolff’s comments as “really crass”.



“To blame or criticise anybody in his design team is actually disingenuous,” Jordan said on the ‘Formula For Success’ podcast.



“It’s really crass. He’s the CEO, he’s the boss. The buck stops with him.”



Whilst the Irishman wasn’t a fan of Wolff’s choice of words, Schumacher felt that the Mercedes boss was “very good” in what he said.



The brother of ex-Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher believes Wolff will be feeling “angry” on the inside for listening to his engineers, who have seemingly made a mistake in sticking to their ‘zero sidepod’ concept from last season.



As a result, Schumacher is expecting some engineers to perhaps be fired, given how much work Mercedes have to do to catch up once again.



“You can see from Toto Wolff’s reaction,” Schumacher said.




Charles #Leclerc praises Oscar Piastri in Saudi Arabia https://t.co/Qn9hOp9tOk — Formula1News.co.uk (@Formula1newsUK) March 19, 2023




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“Personally, I find his clearly spoken words very good.



“He’ll surely be angry for believing the engineers who were keen to stick to the car concept, which is wildly different from that of the class-leading Red Bull or Aston Martin,” Schumacher added.



“Now he knows that concept was wrong, so I think there will be personnel consequences at Mercedes.”
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