When Susie met Toto: 'Instant attraction' and why she risked it all for Mercedes F1 boss Wolff

Susie and Toto Wolff pose at the premiere of F1 Academy on Netflix — Photo: © IMAGO

Susie Wolff

When Susie met Toto: 'Instant attraction' and why she risked it all

The F1 Academy managing director discussed how her relationship with Toto Wolff started

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Tuesday 28 April 2026 21:57 Updated: 22:16

Former racing driver and managing director of F1 Academy, Susie Wolff, recently offered a rare glimpse into her relationship with Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff.

Wolff has enjoyed an illustrious career in motorsport, best known for her role as test and development driver at Williams from 2012 until 2015, and was the last woman to compete in an F1 weekend during FP1 at Silverstone in 2014.

Since leaving her racing career behind, Wolff has taken on team leadership roles where she became Venturi Racing's team principal in Formula E in 2018, and was later named as their CEO in 2021.

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Then in 2023, Wolff made her biggest career move to date and was announced as the managing director of the all-female racing series F1 Academy, which has gone on to produce champions such as Doriane Pin - who recently stepped up and tested Mercedes F1 machinery in April.

Alongside this, Wolff has delved deeper into her career through her memoir Driven which has recently been shortlisted in three major award categories.

Wolff also touched on her personal life, including her marriage to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. She then elaborated on this topic during a recent appearance on the Red Flags podcast, illuminating their 'instant attraction' but also how risky it was for a woman in the motorsport space to become romantically linked with a colleague.

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Wolff: It was easy for women to get a reputation, unfairly so

Wolff revealed in her memoir that she was with a group and claimed she'd never date anybody from Mercedes. Toto then apparently piped up and said: "Not even me?"

Later, Wolff then sent him a text that said: "If it was anybody from Mercedes, it would be you."

Wolff elaborated on the text during the podcast and explained: "I remember it all like it was yesterday.

"There's one fact you're forgetting though. I was, at that time in racing, well aware how easy it was for women to get a reputation and really unfairly so. And I heard the way my team-mates spoke about girls and I thought: 'Okay I don't ever want to be spoken about like that.' Because I was always surrounded by young men.

"So that's what made me really risk adverse to getting it wrong, getting a reputation and being spoken about in a way that I didn't want to be spoken about."

Wolff: It was an instant attraction

Wolff then added: "That probably sent me way too far the wrong way, but I remember the first moment I saw Toto, when he walked into the hospitality and I said: 'Who is that?' And he was with Miss Austria at the time.

"It was a really tough decision whether to put the story into the book or not, but I felt it was such a big part of my life. And me sending that text, Toto and I often joke: 'What would have happened if you hadn't sent that text?' It really was: 'If it was anybody from Mercedes, it would be you'.

"And he always says: 'We would have found ourselves together at some point because we fit so well. It would have happened another way.' But I'm not so sure and I wanted, especially the female readers, to know that I put myself out there. It was at the time hugely frightening, if it was going to work or not.

"But I felt, I had to know and I felt so strongly that I sent that text. And thank goodness I sent it because how different it all could of turned out."

"It was an instant attraction to Toto...he wasn't in Formula 1 at that point, he was not the Toto Wolff you all know now."

"But he was always someone who was really easy to speak to and in the conversations we'd had together, there was always an easiness to him that I was really really attracted to. So I think I had to put it out there, because the feelings were so strong and he proposed after six months and we were married within two years and we've been together 17 years now.

"So there was that easiness from the very beginning, but it just felt so right. That's why I had this deep urge to say: 'Okay, I have to make a move here'. Because I was so closed off and I was so guarded and I always kept my distance that I never gave him the vibes that there could be something. So I felt, okay, he needs to know there could be something."

Toto's response to the text

Wolff then admitted Toto's response to the famous text wasn't even that great, with the hosts paraphrasing from her book that he was on a flight and he'd call when he landed.

Wolff added: "He played it cool at the start...[my bravery] wasn't immediately rewarded. It took a few months."

It was then revealed that Toto bought the ring six weeks in, then proposed six months into the relationship.

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Written by

Sheona Mountford - F1 Journalist

Sheona Mountford is a motorsport journalist specialising in F1. As a writer and contributor, she covers a wide range of motorsport series from F1 to F1 Academy, responsible for breaking news, live race coverage and in depth analysis of the sport and the culture around it.

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