Toto Wolff, Mercedes, Belgium, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

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Wolff sends 'BRUTAL' warning over F1 future

Mercedes finished the 2024 F1 constructors' championship in fourth place

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Monday 16 December 2024 19:56 Updated: 15:18

Toto Wolff has issued a warning to Formula 1 following a ‘brutal’ 2024 season for his Mercedes team.

The eight-time constructors’ champions finished the season fourth in the standings, behind rivals McLaren and Ferrari who both made significant gains on-track in 2024.

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Mercedes’ first blow was delivered at the start of the season however, when Lewis Hamilton announced he would be joining Ferrari in 2025.

In the champion’s final season with Mercedes, Hamilton was often left frustrated with the performance of the W15 and struggled to extract pace from his car in qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton competed in his final season with Mercedes in 2024

Mercedes achieved a 1-2 at the Las Vegas GP

Toto Wolff discusses brutal F1 season for Mercedes

Despite their performance issues, Mercedes have managed to achieve multiple victories in 2024 including at Hamilton's home race in Silverstone, Spa, Austria and Las Vegas.

However, Wolff described the team's experience in Las Vegas as 'brutal', and complained about the toll that the lengthy calendar has taken on Mercedes' staff this year.

The 2024 season hosted a record number of 24 races, an amount that F1 teams and drivers do not want to see surpassed in the future.

In a discussion during a broadcast on Austrian network ORF, a panel of Wolff, Helmut Marko and Alexander Wurz claimed that F1 is over the limit of manageable races, issuing an ultimatum of sorts to F1, urging them not to introduce further races.

Toto Wolff discusses brutal experience for team in Las Vegas

"It's over the limit," Wolff said.

"The mechanics who set up and dismantle fly economy. You can see it in people's faces now: it's no longer possible."

"Las Vegas was brutal. You only see daylight for a few hours, you go to bed, you don't know whether you should eat or not.

"Then you wake up at midday, or in the very early morning, we were all different. And the rhythm takes you away so much that you can hardly recover from it."

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