"Stopped breathing for a sec" - F1 fans react to Mercedes' witty post on the team principals' silly season

Mercedes' witty post on social media during the team principals' silly season had fans in a twist. In the last few days, there has been a massive shuffle as senior team personnel has either resigned or announced that they are moving to a different team.

Most of the chaos was caused on Tuesday when a slew of announcements was made about team principals leaving one team and joining another. Mercedes' social media account had a witty take on it as it posted:

"BREAKING: We’ve got nothing to announce, so here’s a photo of the Boss."

The "Breaking" at the start of the post and Toto Wolff's image had fans taken aback. After going through the entire post, fans had a good laugh at the timing of the post and its witty nature. Here are some of the reactions.

"ooof don’t do this to me, stopped breathing for a sec"

"Admin one of these days you will kill me"

"Mercedes admin trying to get those extra points in the social media championship"

"Adminnnn seriously my heart dropped don’t do that"

"Hey boss. Make sure whatever they announce we are ahead."

"You are too cute admin. We have a great boss, great drivers, all we need is for the W14 to be great."

"They should instead have put pictures of Sir Lewis and George. Toto could not even be bothered to take action to reinstate Sir Lewis 8th F1 World Championship..."

"Thanks team, needed to this. I was starting to worry with all the TP moves"

"This is much better Admin ... don't fix what ain't broke. Best boss man around"

"In the world of Binottos and Vasseurs, be a Toto!"

"Mercedes admin doesn’t get enough credit for their comedic timing and their humour"

"love that teams are flexing that they have team principals now but come on @redbullracing you have the chance to do something legendary"

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Mercedes' joke comes at a time of massive shuffle in the team principal market

The joke comes at a time when prominent teams like Ferrari, McLaren, Alfa Romeo, and Williams saw changes in senior management. Ferrari saw Mattia Binotto's departure and the arrival of Fred Vasseur. McLaren lost Andreas Seidl to Alfa Romeo/Sauber while Williams saw team principal Jost Capito resign and leave the team.

The 2023 F1 season will see a number of familiar faces, but they will be affiliated with new teams. It's rare to see a shuffle of this scale, but that is F1 -- these kind of things are quite common.