Wolff: Second place a failure for Ferrari

Toto Wolff says the biggest difference between Mercedes and Ferrari is the teams' attitude to winning and losing races in Formula 1. The Austrian, who has presided over the German marque's utter domination of F1 since 2014, says he runs Mercedes with a "modest" approach.

The Silver Arrows have swept the boards in F1 since 2014, winning the drivers' and constructors' championship each year.

Such sustained success has only been seen once before in F1, by the Ferrari team of the early 2000s led by Michael Schumacher.

Wolff says occasionally accepting second place has helped the champions find greater consistency than their main rivals.

"Part of our DNA is that we remain modest as we win," Wolff told the Dutch magazine Formule 1.

"We do not take the win for granted -- we do not see it as something that is self-evident or our right. We do not go into every weekend with the attitude that winning is a must.

"If there are races in which second is the maximum and we have done our utmost, I have peace with it. I think that is the biggest difference between us and Ferrari."

For the first time in the V6 Hybrid era, Ferrari put up a strong challenge to Mercedes' domination in 2018, but the Italian team ultimately fell short due to strategic and driver mistakes.

Wolff continued: "They have the attitude that anything less than victory is not enough. They have to win. Being second is a failure, even if they still did their best."

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