Mercedes "brutal transparency" key to learning from mistakes - Toto Wolff

Mercedes

Mercedes "brutal transparency" key to learning from mistakes - Wolff

Mercedes boss Wolff believes the team has created a safe environment for open talking in the wake of poor performance

Ewan Gale

Monday 14 June 2021 05:00

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Toto Wolff has insisted a "brutal transparency" at Mercedes is key to how the team deals with adversity and will turn around its fortunes in F1.

Mercedes has been the dominant team in the sport since the introduction of V6 turbo-hybrid power units in 2014 and while there have been blips in this form along the way, the team has never been under as much pressure as it is this year.

Following the Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes lost the lead in both the drivers' and constructors' standings to Red Bull, the first time it had been knocked off the top of either table since the German Grand Prix in 2018.

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A zero point return from the Azerbaijan race saw the team drop further behind Red Bull, with the margin in the constructors' championship now 26 points.

Speaking at an Oxford University talk regarding 'Leadership in Extraordinary Times', Wolff outlined how the team picks itself up and moves on.

"Brutal transparency within the organisation," he said. "We need to be able to learn from our mistakes because there are just two options.

"You make a mistake and you cover it up or you are not in a safe place to talk about it or utilise it as an opportunity to develop and learn.

"I have heard a sentence that when it stings it sticks. Painful moments in the races are the ones that make us progress the most.

"In that respect, every weekend is about brutal analysis of what is happening in the days after the weekend and then utilising those learnings for the next race to come and for the future development of every component in the car.

"So it comes back down to the culture of really being transparent with each other because we share the same objective, creating a safe environment and using the power of the collective intelligence if the people in order to solve the problems."

Mercedes debrief like a Williams session

Such is the inquest after each session across a races weekend, Wolff suggested the briefings sound like a bottom of the championship team, not like that of a championship-winning team.

"When you listen to a debrief today after a weekend where we finish first and second, you would think this is Williams debriefing from a weekend on a tenth place," he added.

"I don't mean that in an arrogant way, it is just a culture that is always sceptical and we always believe we are not good enough and have to stay on our toes in order to maintain our success and that starts with sometimes going where it hurts.

"They say that if you don't go there then you are not going to improve as an organisation and it needs to start with all of us leading the organisation."