Wolff addresses Elliott’s departure as he insists Mercedes’ 2024 plans won’t be affected

Toto Wolff has opened up about the departure of Chief Technical Officer Mike Elliott from Mercedes, with the team boss denying that Elliott’s exit was in any way performance-related.

Before the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Elliott had announced his decision to leave the squad after eleven years together. He had assumed the position six months earlier when the current Technical Director, James Allison, had taken over for him.

Elliott’s role included creating a technical plan to “renew the team’s technical capability for the years ahead” in light of Red Bull’s recent dominance. According to Mercedes, this is currently being delivered, and Elliott has made the decision to step away from racing in the coming months.

During the weekend at Interlagos, Wolff was quizzed in an interview with Sky Sports F1 on whether Elliott’s departure was performance-related. He responded: “No, Mike was my number one employee for many, many years in terms of how he performed. We’re going to miss one of the most clever people in the industry.

It was just a hard toll on him over those many years, and I find it very remarkable that someone can say, ‘you know what, I need to do something else’, rather than holding on to this. Formula 1 anyway is an incestuous environment, if somebody is strong and says, ‘I’m done with it for the time being’, that’s good.”

Mercedes faced struggles with the W13 in the 2022 season, prompting surprise from many when they looked to have stayed with the same car concept for their 2023 challenger, the W14.

When asked if Elliott had paid the price for this, Wolff denied that was the case. The Team Principal explained: “No, it’s never the decision of a single person. I think, as a group, we’re trying to build the quickest race car, and obviously we were so far down the route with that concept of the car that we thought maybe we got on top of it.

“We didn’t, that’s why we changed it. We put lots of plasters on the car in order to be more competitive like we see now, but that hasn’t got any correlation.”

While Elliott had been a key figure within the Mercedes team for several years, Wolff does not expect his exit to impact on track performance.

“If a car doesn’t work, I don’t think it’s the fault of one person,” he stated. “It’s also not just one person,” the driver added, “that makes the car faster. I think we have such strength in the organization that you can take one out and everybody else is going to cover that, and the opposite will also be true for next year.

Following a difficult beginning to the campaign, Mercedes has shown improvement as 2023 has gone on. With a 22-point advantage over Ferrari, the team presently holds P2 in the constructors’ standings. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton is gaining ground on Sergio Perez in the drivers’ championship battle for second place.