The ‘regrets’ Toto Wolff has over infamous Mercedes F1 rivalry

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has “regrets” over the way he managed the infamous rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, it has been claimed.

Hamilton and Rosberg engaged in a fierce championship title fight for three consecutive seasons at the height of Mercedes’ dominance during the early years of F1’s V6 hybrid era.

After Hamilton came out on top in 2014 and 2015, Rosberg prevailed to claim his maiden world title in 2016 before dramatically retiring from the sport days after the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

The way Mercedes managed their intra-team title battle has been brought back into the spotlight amid scrutiny facing McLaren in the wake of their decision to swap Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris late in the Italian Grand Prix.

While debating the title fight involving the McLaren pair, Brazilian journalist Julianne Cerasoli revealed that Wolff still harbours regrets over how the situation was handled at Mercedes.

“I was speaking at Mercedes earlier, and they were telling me that Toto regrets the way he managed the team in 2016, because it was the same situation,” Cerasoli told the F1 Nation Podcast.

“So, the championship was won by the team, and they tried to impose a lot of rules between the drivers. When this happens, try to cover every scenario possible, and that didn’t end up well, because they just couldn’t cover everything.

“Then he was over-managed to fight between the two drivers, and that’s one of his regrets from his old days. But again, different people, you never know, they know better than us the people who they are managing and how it works.”

Fellow journalist Frederic Ferret said: “Neither Lewis nor Nico were like Lando or Oscar.

“Nico has been all his life obsessed with winning against Lewis. He was always beaten, and he was beaten harshly in 2015, after going to the last round in 2014.

“Then, when he saw the opportunity. I can tell you that there were no more rules, and you could see that it was going ugly. It was not only on the track.”

Toto Wolff’s words of warning to McLaren

Wolff weighed in on the major talking point from Monza and warned McLaren their controversial team order has set a precent that is “very difficult to undo”.

"There is no right and there is no wrong, and I'm curious to see how that pans out. You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo,” Wolff said.

"What if the team does another mistake and it's not a pitstop... do you switch them around? But then equally, because of a team mistake, making a driver that is trying to catch up lose the points is not fair either.

"So, I think we are going to get our response of whether that was right today towards the end of the season when it heats up.”

Rosberg made the comparison between McLaren's dynamic and his title fights with Hamilton on The F1 Show podcast. 

"We had very clear silver rules, not papaya rules, silver rules [that] if we risk losing the race win to a competitor, we need to work together as a team to secure the race win," the 2016 world champion said.

"Monaco Grand Prix 2016, I'm racing against Lewis for the championship. I'm second, he is third, and Ricciardo is disappearing in the distance because I'm too slow.

"So the team, there's a threat that we as a team are losing the race win. It's clear. So the team comes on the radio and tells me, 'you need to let Lewis pass because we might lose the race win here otherwise'.

"So I moved over and waved him past because it was clearly defined and, of course, it's hard in the moment, but it's then clear and easy to understand and you just got to do it.

"Lewis didn't do it in Abu Dhabi, which was the same situation, but also that is understandable that you would then. If you're an assassin, you want to try and maximise the grey areas."