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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff recently revealed that he has studied the journey, learnings, and failures of professional football club Manchester United.
The Silver Arrows dominated F1 in the turbo hybrid era to take eight consecutive world constructors' championship titles, only to struggle in 2022, where their chances of taking the ninth title seem rather unlikely. To ensure that Mercedes does not completely lose its competitiveness, Wolff claimed that he studied the football club that has been unable to replicate its victories since 2013, despite taking a whopping 13 Premier League titles before that time. The Austrian was subsequently harshly criticized by fans for making these remarks.
Referring to Manchester United's results and record under the leadership of Sir Alex Ferguson, Wolff had said:
“I studied why great teams were not able to repeat great title [runs]. No sports team in any sport has ever won eight consecutive World Championship titles and there are many reasons for that, and what is at the core is the human. The human gets complacent. You are not energised in the same way you were before. You are maybe not as ambitious.”
“I often get the question: ‘How hard is that?’ I had so many periods, so many episodes in my life that I would judge as difficult, that this is not on the same scale. I don’t think it’s challenging in a way because I’ve had much harder times in all of my life, not particularly in Formula One, but this is actually within my comfort zone.”
Fans react to Toto Wolff's comments about Manchester United
Mercedes boss talks about the car's experimental set-ups in the first half of 2022
From the very beginning of the 2022 season, Mercedes knew they had quite a challenge in front of them. The team ran experimental set-ups for Lewis Hamilton during practice sessions to learn and improve as much as they could to get back to their winning days. The seven-time world champion once also joked about hoping that his teammate would be doing the experiments in the second half of the season.
As reported by Motorsport, Wolff spoke about the team's struggles with coming to terms with where they stood at the start of the year, saying:
“In December, we raced for a world championship, and four months later, we have a car that is not championship material. So everyone - drivers, engineers, management - need to just find the ground and say, OK, this is the reality now, what are we doing about it? You can’t just flip the switch and say, OK, no problem, we’re going to work ourselves out of it.”
Mercedes currently stand third in the constructors' standings. With the progress made by the team over the last few races of the first half of the 2022 season, the Silver Arrows are quickly closing the gap to Ferrari, who stand second. Currently, a mere 30 points separate the two teams.
