Toto Wolff reveals F1 signing regret that has DAMAGED Mercedes

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Toto Wolff reveals F1 signing regret that has DAMAGED Mercedes

Toto Wolff and McLaren entered a partnership in 2023

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Saturday 19 July 2025 11:57 Updated: 15:12

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Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff has issued regrets about a signing from the 2023 season, after seeing his sporting rivals overtake the Silver Arrows.

Off the back of a 2020 season which saw his F1 team claim their seventh successive constructors' championship, Wolff and Mercedes entered into a partnership with McLaren, who had been running as a midfield team at the time.

Mercedes started supplying engines to McLaren, after their deal with Renault came to an end, and CEO Zak Brown started to try and turn McLaren into a championship-challenging outfit.

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After a poor 2022 season, McLaren started picking up regular podium finishes in 2023, before claiming constructors' championship success in 2024 with their talented driver line-up of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

In 2025, the team are dominating the rest of the field, with Mercedes already 250 points behind their papaya rivals and Piastri and Norris look like the only serious contenders for the drivers' championship.

Wolff has reflected on how far the team have come, suggesting the Mercedes-McLaren partnership, which will run until at least 2030, may not have been his best idea.

"Look at where they were three, four years ago, when we signed the deal with them that they were going to use our fast engines for the next few years. Then they were 18th and it was easy to make such a decision," Wolff said to Sky Italia.

"With the knowledge of today, I don’t know if it was the most intelligent choice in my life to make that deal with them. They have it really well together in terms of engineering, and that’s why they perform so insanely well, especially in hot conditions," he added.

McLaren's drivers are dominating the 2025 F1 championship

Can Mercedes become champions once more?

Mercedes' run of eight consecutive constructors' championships came to an end in 2022, when the dominant Red Bull team stormed to success.

Since that year, Mercedes have not been in a championship fight, and are now desperate to give their drivers the tools to be able to compete when new regulations enter the sport in 2026.

Wolff has even been pursuing the signature of four-time world champion Max Verstappen to help their cause, admitting at the British Grand Prix that talks were ongoing.

Current partnership George Russell and Kimi Antonelli have sparkled at times in 2025, but Russell is still 87 points behind championship leader Piastri.

Wolff's outfit have been left scratching their heads on occasion thanks to their inconsistent F1 machinery, which often performs well under cooler conditions, but is no match for the versatility of their customer team McLaren.

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