Toto Wolff Says He Has No Plan to Step Aside at Mercedes
NXTbets Pro | Published On: November 14, 2026
Wolff stays put
Wolff said he had no plan to step aside at Mercedes, and he said the company’s top leadership pushed him to stay through the toughest stretch of the team’s recent history. Speaking at the Golden Steering Wheel awards in Berlin, Wolff said he had offered to resign several times during Mercedes’ difficult ground-effect era, but Ola Källenius kept telling him to remain in charge and to lead the turnaround himself. Wolff made clear that the message had not changed now that Mercedes was back on top. He repeated that there was “no plan to call it a day,” and when asked whether he would still be running the team, he answered, “Yes. Ola is forcing me to.” The Mercedes team principal also said he still believed he brought value to the organization and said he enjoyed the job, a point that fit with the confidence he showed as he described the club’s recovery. That confidence stood in contrast to the uncertainty he said defined the period when the team struggled to understand the new technical rules and kept searching for answers.
Mercedes turnaround
Mercedes’ return to the front gave Wolff a very different view of the job. He said the ground-effect era brought setbacks and confusion, and he pointed to the team’s failed “zeropod” concept as one part of those problems. The results then told a different story. Mercedes had won 12 times so far that season, a run that showed how far the team had come after its long stretch of frustration. That surge also delivered major championships. Mercedes clinched its ninth constructors’ championship in Brazil and secured the Drivers’ title with Kimi Antonelli in Mexico. Taken together, those results marked a sharp swing in the team’s form and underlined why Wolff’s role remained central. He framed the turnaround as something built inside the team rather than handed to it from outside. Källenius, he said, wanted him to stay and oversee the recovery himself instead of passing the work to someone else. That backing mattered because it linked the team’s on-track rebound to the leadership structure that helped guide it through the rough spell and then into a title-winning run.
Split-role future
Wolff’s comments also pointed to a future in which the Mercedes leadership setup could look different, even if he remained in charge for the time being. He said the team principal role could eventually evolve into split responsibilities, a sign that the workload had already started to shift. Wolff said deputy team principal Bradley Lord had taken on much of the work, which suggested the structure around him was already adjusting to the demands of a team that was winning again. That did not sound like a departure plan. It sounded like an executive looking at how to manage the job over the long term. Wolff’s comments made that clear. He said he still believed he contributed to the team and enjoyed the work, which explained why he was in no rush to walk away. Mercedes’ recent success gave him room to think about the next phase without the pressure that came with the team’s struggles. The title run changed the mood, but it did not change his stance. Wolff said he was staying, while responsibilities could be divided going forward.
