Wolff compares Mercedes success to "eight Christmas evenings"

Toto Wolff has compared Mercedes' period of dominance in F1 to having "eight Christmas evenings in a row".

The Silver Arrows delivered a stunning streak of success between 2014 and 2021, winning all but one available title after Lewis Hamilton was denied an eighth drivers' title by Max Verstappen.

But the new technical regulations in the sport left Mercedes lagging behind, the team only securing a single victory after a season of development to overcome fundamental issues with the W13.

Team principal Wolff explained: “I studied most of the successful sports teams in general that dominated an era and eventually started to perform well but then fell apart. There were pretty solid reasons why that happened, you can trace back.

“I’ve never seen in our organisation a sense of complacency, nowhere.

“For me, it is like having eight Christmas evenings in a row. The eighth time is not going to be as exciting as the first time.

“I remember saying, ‘This is another race victory. Good, we are very happy, we performed well’. We debriefed like it was our first, but I think it is like in human nature that you become used to it.

“And that’s why bouncing back in Brazil and seeing the emotions of the team, I had so much pride."

Assessing the reaction to the victory, Wolff added: “It’s interesting to look at ourselves and see an emotion that I hadn’t seen coming and it’s tremendously fulfilling.

"Although it was one race victory, we finished third in the constructors’ championship, we weren’t really on pace with the others, but it was another piece of the jigsaw to eventually come back and fight at the very front.”

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