Is the friendship between Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff slowly withering away? Toto Wolff’s recent comment certainly suggests that it might be the case. Hamilton and Wolff have been together at Mercedes for almost 12 years now. And in that time, the two have developed a strong friendship which was fueled by their unmatched on-track success.

However, Lewis Hamilton surprised everyone including Wolff when he decided to make a switch to Ferrari in 2025. Furthermore, Lewis told Toto only a day before the official announcement from Ferrari. It’s been a couple of months since then, but the relationship between them is apparently starting to fall apart.

Hamilton chose to leave Mercedes at a time when the team was at its lowest. The Brackley squad must have been depending a lot on him to get them back to the top. However, when a driver is set to leave a team, there is naturally tension between the two parties as the team begins to keep sensitive data from the driver.

Also, Hamilton has been more and more vocal about the poor performance of the W15, which was not the case in the last 2 seasons when they were still struggling a lot. In a recent conversation with Sky Germany, Toto Wolff was asked if Hamilton would play a part in developing their 2025 challenger, the W16. And that’s when Toto decided to downplay the role of a driver as he seemed to taunt the 7-time champion by claiming that engineers are more valuable than drivers.

“The fact is that the driver’s role in the development of the vehicle is always very overestimated,” said Wolff. “There is input once a year for the upcoming vehicle development and during the year simply feedback on how the car drives. It’s worse to lose an engineer if he goes to another team twelve months later than a driver who changes teams next week.“

While there are still 19 races left to go in the season, Wolff has the big task of finding a worthy replacement for Hamilton before the end of the season.

Toto Wolff wants Max Verstappen to succeed Lewis Hamilton

It was shocking that Toto Wolff named Max Verstappen as his number-one choice for replacing Hamilton. But why would Verstappen, who is contracted to Red Bull till 2028, leave the most dominant car to get into a Mercedes which is at best the 4th fastest team right now? It has to do with the internal power struggle at Red Bull that prompted Verstappen himself to threaten his future with the Milton Keynes squad.

Wolff has made it clear that he wants Verstappen regardless of what he might have to pay the Dutchman. But the question remains, how can Toto Wolff hope to attract a triple world champion with an unreliably slow car? Wolff explained his rationale in China.

“When you look at it from the most rational point of view, you can say, that’s the quickest car in the hands of the quickest driver,” Wolff told the media. “But I don’t think that this is the only reason you stay where you are. I think for, let’s say, simple minds, that might be the only reason why you stay in a car and that’s it. But maybe there’s more depth to some people that consider other factors too. And I think that Max has that.”

Wolff also said that if not in 2025, Mercedes has a really good shot to return to the top in 2026 with the new regulations, and that might be something that can convince Verstappen to join the team.

Do you think the situation at Red Bull behind the scenes is stable enough to hold Verstappen till 2028? Or is Wolff’s wish going to be fulfilled?