Three seasons into F1's current rules era, it's time to stop with the delusions of grandeur and, more importantly, stop giving Mercedes the benefit of the doubt.
"Next year will be better." "There's great potential in this team." "We've learned from our mistakes of the past." Cleveland Browns fans will be very familiar with these sentiments. But now so too will fans of Mercedes, once one of F1's most emphatic teams, capable of nearly lapping the entire field at their peak. At a first glance, it would seem like the team has never been the same since lap 57 of the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, seemingly shattered by seeing victory snatched from the jaws of defeat by Red Bull. But a closer look reveals that the decline in fact started well before that fateful night in the Middle East.
For many reasons, Mercedes is one of the most polarized teams on the grid. All too easy it seems like any time this team is mentioned it's "oh, well you only think this because of that" and the like. I want to be clear. I don't have particularly strong feelings toward Mercedes. There are teams I like more. There are teams I like less. Same for the drivers. Not everything has some kind of agenda; sometimes, a spade is a spade. Or in this case, a silver arrow is a silver arrow. So let's take a look at some of the factors why I think Mercedes is struggling and has done for longer than you think.
Exit of Key Personnel
The apex of Mercedes' domination, contrary to popular opinion, was not 2020 with the W11 but in fact in 2016 with the W07. OK, it wasn't the most reliable car the team had ever built (as many Hamilton fans will know), but it was damn fast. With minimal regulation changes between 2015 and 2016, the W07 was often up to three seconds per lap faster than its predecessor, which itself was already the fastest car that year. To put that in perspective, if Haas, the last-place finisher in 2023, produced a car that was three seconds per lap faster than its predecessor, it would have been on pole in the season opener by over a second. It's also worth noting that the W07 is only beaten by the McLaren MP4/4 and the Red Bull RB19 in terms of all-time best win percentage for a car.
Since that car was made, there have been numerous exits from the Mercedes technical department, with very few outsiders brought in as replacement. While internal promotion may be great for cost cap purposes and general continuity, what it lacks most is the introduction of new ideas from outside perspectives. As the ground effect era has progressed, this has been an increasingly clear issue for Mercedes as it continually fails to understand the requirements of extracting consistent performance from its race cars. The notable departures since 2016 include the following, with their position at time of departure given:
Paddy Lowe (Technical Director)
The technical director is, traditionally, the top of the entire technical structure of the team. Perhaps not influential in a direct capacity, they often set the organizational direction and influence car concept. After leaving Mercedes, Lowe went to Williams where he tried to do what James Vowles is finding so difficult now; turning Williams around into a top team again. It did not go well, and Lowe was fired after the 2019 car was delivered late, illegal, and comfortably slower than both its predecessor and the rest of the cars that year.
Aldo Costa (Engineering Director)
The Engineering Director is probably the No. 2 to the TD, although there are few others (such as Chief Designer, Performance Director, Technology Director, etc.) which share this level in the structure. Aldo Costa, despite not having the name recognition of say an Adrian Newey, is in fact the most statistically successful engineer/designer in F1 history with cars he's developed capturing a combined 26 Drivers' and Constructors' titles. He left in 2018 and has been Chief Technical Officer of renowned race car design company Dallara since 2020.
Mark Ellis (Performance Director)
Ellis, like Costa, quietly exited the team in 2018 after having been at Red Bull as Chief Vehicle Performance Engineer during the Vettel era before switching to Mercedes in 2014. Talk about foresight; the teams he worked with won the championship every year from 2010 to 2018. He did not move to another team after leaving Mercedes.
Loic Serra (Chief Vehicle Dynamicist/Performance Director)
At the time of the W07, Serra was the Chief Vehicle Dynamicist, although he eventually replaced Ellis as Performance Director. The Performance Director is less responsible for design and more responsible for extracting the maximum from the design, usually through operations and setup. Last year it was announced that Serra would be departing Mercedes for Ferrari, where he will again work with Lewis Hamilton in 2025.
Mike Elliott (Head of Aerodynamics/Technical Director/Chief Technical Officer)
Arguably the highest-profile exit from Mercedes in the wake of the "zeropod" failure of the W13 and W14, Elliott was Head of Aerodynamics in 2016 before eventually becoming Technical Director in 2021 after an interlude as Chief Technology Officer in between. In the wake of Mercedes' performance shortcomings in 2022 and 2023, He was transitioned to the role of Chief Technical Officer, which while technically higher in the chain of command is far less hands-on than a TD. He left after a few months in the F1 equivalent of a "departure due to creative differences."
Andy Cowell (Lead Power Unit Designer)
To me, this is actually the most significant departure of the last decade for the team. Cowell was Engineering Director for Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains (HPP) from 2008 to 2013, before becoming Managing Director form 2014-2020. Why is this important? Two things. First, he was in charge of the team that designed the all-conquering Mercedes PU that went unmatched for at least 4 years. Second, and most importantly, he will NOT be around for the design of the 2026 PU, meaning that Mercedes' chances of nailing the new rules are perhaps slimmer than they would otherwise have been. Already since his departure it would seem that other manufacturers have caught or maybe even passed Mercedes in the PU race despite the fact that we are well into "diminishing returns" territory on these current rules. Certainly worrying.
There are even more departures not mentioned here which have been worrying for the Brackley-based team. This includes Eric Blandin, Head of Aerodynamics who left in 2021 after previously replacing Mike Elliott in the role. He now works at Aston Martin as the Deputy TD under Dan Fallows. Even James Allison, who joined the team in 2017 after stints with Ferrari and Lotus/Renault, transitioned to the Chief Technical Officer role in 2021 to focus on other things besides F1 before being parachuted back in as TD after Elliott's time as TD failed to yield results. All in all, not a great picture for the team.
A Rudderless (Leader-) Ship
Leading a Formula One team, especially a good one, is presumably exceptionally difficult. Just look at the rate of turnover in terms of team bosses over the last three years. But I think that good leadership is good leadership regardless of context. Canadian author Robin Sharma makes a point that I agree with and which also applies directly to Mercedes; anyone can lead when the plan is working. The best lead when the plan falls apart.
For most of Mercedes' title-winning era, the team was run, not dissimilar to Red Bull, by two figures: a Non-Executive Chairman (Niki Lauda) and a formal Team Principal (Toto Wolff). Red Bull has Helmut Marko in the non-executive role, with Christian Horner as the formal Team Principal. One can speak their mind freely while the other has to bend to the will of public relations, but done correctly both can work in synergy quite well. A good fusion of outspoken traditionalism and modern political and technical savvy. But since Lauda's illness and death in 2019, Mercedes has been left with Just Wolff helming the ship.
In itself, this may be OK, as Wolff had proven himself more than capable of going toe-to-toe with Horner in a press conference battle of wits or keeping the ship steady even when key personnel headed to the exit door. But over time, there have been changes in the team's structure and obviously competitiveness that have raised cause for concern.
Loss of Lauda Only Notable with Time
As I mentioned above, the Lauda-Wolff dynamic was one that when it worked often provided benefits beyond the tangible for Mercedes. For example, Lauda was one of the key elements in getting Lewis Hamilton onboard before the 2014 rules changes that would favor Mercedes. Lauda was also in the position that few in the paddock were, in that he was almost unilaterally respected and when he said something it was usually correct, even if it may not have been popular at the time. His presence also allowed Mercedes to somewhat delegate leadership duties between the two, even if Wolff ultimately was the one with the title of Team Principal.
Without Lauda, Wolff has more or less been alone at the top of the team. In some ways this can be a benefit; there is no ambiguity in terms of what leadership wants, and things can be handled more swiftly when necessary. But what is lost is someone to, for lack of a better term, keep Wolff in check. Nobody there to tell him "hey, what you are telling the press or the team or the drivers is wrong, or should be done like this." From a human perspective, it is always nice to have someone else to bounce ideas off of before making decisions, especially ones of consequence. Mercedes doesn't have that anymore.
The Lone Wolff
This has been compounded by the fact that, in 2020, Wolff became an equal-majority shareholder in the team, along with INEOS, with a 33.3% stake. That means that the 'Mercedes' team is just as much the 'Wolff' team as it is Mercedes. Except that Wolff is one man and Mercedes is a giant conglomerate with thousands of employees, a complex management structure, and all the other bureaucratic nonsense that comes with running a giant corporation. So it wouldn't be a stretch to say that although financially Mercedes (the company) is as equally responsible for Mercedes (the team) as Wolff, I'd bet that in day-to-day operations they are much more marginalized compared to Wolff, especially as INEOS (and its founder/chairman Jim Ratcliffe) are not very hands-on with regards to management of the team.
"Anyone can lead when the plan is working. The best lead when the plan falls apart."
So now, we have Wolff running unopposed at the top of the team with seemingly nobody above him. This in itself would be OK if there was a clear division between Toto Wolff the Owner and Toto Wolff the Team Principal; but that line is getting continuously blurrier. Take the Las Vegas GP practice debacle as a prime example; F1 spends hundreds of millions of dollars building and advertising this race as the ultimate can't-miss event. As a team owner, Wolff is literally invested in the success of the event. But when there is a track issue which causes running to be delayed for hours, fans to be sent home, cars to be damaged beyond repair, and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in tickets to go unused, he instead chooses to attack fans and journalists and has total apathy for his affected competitors because he doesn't want to tarnish the reputation of the race.
No normal team principal would be so accepting of his team's practice time being compromised, team personnel being burned out, or a track potentially being unsafe. No good team principal, anyways. He puts the event's perception and financial risk over the well-being of his drivers, team members, and other competitors. Even Abu Dhabi 2021, where Mercedes could—and arguably should—have taken their case to court, Mercedes gave up the fight in less than 24 hours, I think at least in part because they didn't want to be seen as "sore losers" and risk having their name dragged through the mud. Looking back, I bet that Toto would have liked to have had that decision over again knowing race wins, let alone championships, would go from expectations to distant dreams.
Driver Dilemma
Even in its period of decline, I think most people of sound mind would agree that Mercedes has a very good driver lineup. The reputation of Lewis Hamilton speaks for itself, even if there have been a slight but noticeable uptick in errors over the last couple of years. If anyone has earned the right to do as he pleases, it's probably Hamilton. On the other side of the garage is George Russell, whose speed is rarely in doubt, even if his accident avoidance skills might leave a little to be desired. You can't say that the drivers themselves are the reason the team is not winning. But even with two good drivers, things still don't seem to be 100% rosy in the teal garage.
When Mercedes were arguably at their peak in 2016, they had two fast drivers but there was an increasingly hostile environment in the garage between them, ironically a product of the team being so far ahead they were usually the only two in the same part of the race track as each other. After Nico Rosberg called it quits with his championship in hand, Mercedes took a different approach to its next driver in Valtteri Bottas. Fast on his day and capable of winning a handful of races each year, Bottas was the antithesis to Rosberg in the sense that tension between the two sides of the garage evaporated. I guess I can't speak for sure but externally it looked a lot more harmonious. And whether official or not, it was pretty clear that there was a hierarchy between Hamilton and Bottas that was very conducive to Lewis winning many, many races and championships.
But as is the way these days, the driver development ranks at Mercedes produced a hot prospect in the form of George Russell and when it came time to "use him or lose him" so to speak, Toto Wolff decided to kick Bottas to the curb. Now, I am a big Bottas fan, but I would be deluded to think that Russell is not at least as fast over one lap and probably faster over a race distance than him. But it's pretty clear that one side effect of ditching Bottas would be that the perfect harmony of the team was in jeopardy. Unlike Bottas, Russell projects an outward desire to be the team leader and is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers. While this can be great at, say, lifting a midfield team to the top step, this sense of—for lack of a better word—entitlement from Russell has led to more flashpoints in the first two years at the team than Bottas had in his five.
It is difficult to see how this will have had a positive impact on the performances of Lewis Hamilton. Sure, maybe he gets pushed harder by his teammate and could be forced into extracting even more performance from himself. But that's only really necessary if someone thinks Lewis needs to extract more performance from himself. Kind of like when Charles Leclerc was placed at Ferrari to motivate Sebastian Vettel, or to see if Vettel could be replaced as yet more championships slip by the wayside. But I don't think Lewis needed motivating, and while never particularly nasty, I think there has been a lot more friction between Lewis and George than there would have been if Valtteri was still there.
This brings us on to what is probably the most open "vote of no confidence" in Mercedes to date: the departure of Lewis Hamilton. With Toto Wolff hesitant to commit to a long term deal because he has an eye on another junior driver in the form of Andrea 'Kimi' Antonelli, Hamilton's decision to jump ship becomes ever more clear. After all, he's already successfully jumped off of one sinking ship (McLaren in 2012) in favor of a voyage to the promised land. He knows exactly what a team losing its way from the inside out looks like. Perhaps he's too good a man to say it publicly, but I think he already knows what many still deny or are just now realizing: Mercedes' problems have no quick fix.
What Now?
The obvious question; one that some small blog can't reliably claim to have an answer for, or else its author would already be working in F1. But I think what Mercedes really needs is for there to be a dedicated team principal running the shop and for Toto Wolff to become Toto the Owner for good. Look at McLaren; Zak Brown is CEO abut he's not also running the day-to-day operations of the team; he has Andrea Stella for that, and so far that seems to be going decently. Ironically, I think Mercedes had that person perfectly in place in the form of James Vowles, who also could be in the "recent departures" category. But it seems clear that Vowles knew that Toto wasn't interested in giving up his reign just yet, and maybe Mercedes will pay the price for this if Williams gets itself together and joins fellow Mercedes customers Aston Martin and McLaren in outrunning the works team.
Until then, I honestly wouldn't expect much change at Mercedes. Without outside hires on the technical side I don't foresee a major breakthrough in car development in the near future, so I'd doubt their competitive prospects will improve greatly between now and at least 2026. That's not to say the people currently at Mercedes can't have good ideas. I want to make that clear. But outside hires can provide a catalyst for change or provide a spark that eventually leads to that eureka moment the team so desperately craves.
Fans, drivers, and other media will probably continue to give them the benefit of the doubt "because they're Mercedes" for the time being. But I won't, because the Mercedes that is given the benefit of the doubt quite simply doesn't exist anymore.