Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams gets the need for speed when he’s invited into the paddock with the Mercedes- AMG Petronas Formula 1 team at the Bahrain and Monaco Grand Prix, shadowing team principal Toto Wolff and his drivers.
Carmen Montero Mundt is watching her boyfriend, British Formula 1 driver, George Russell, perform his pre-race warm up in his dressing room in the Mercedes garage at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April. It’s approximately an hour before the race and while principal Toto Wolff studies car and track data with the team, Russell is strength training with a neck harness for the G-force he’ll be subjecting his body to as he hurtles round the circuit at speeds of up to 230mph. He’s paying particular attention to his neck and head, which can endure 6Gs on the track. He seems quite relaxed given the baying crowds in the stadium outside and the building sense of excitement and anticipation thrumming in the garage. He’s got an ice bath waiting for him post-race, but for now his concentration is all on what’s about to come…
I have unprecedented access to all the moving parts of the Mercedes team on this blistering hot Sunday and it’s a fascinating experience. I can see why fans and teams became addicted to the hi-octane energy of the sport as the crew and wider team move like a well- oiled machine. Like a movie set, this is a company of people moving in sync and with a single-minded mission. Key to that focused drive is team principal Wolff – an exceptionally impressive man with extraordinary leadership skills where you can tell that everyone that works at Mercedes would follow him in. They follow behind him because he leads from the front with great humour and self-deprecation, and he pursues perfection and excellence in a way that very few do. ‘There is no such thing as perfection,’ Wolff smiles as I ask what perfection looks like to him. ‘It’s only the pursuit of perfection. So we’re always going to find the hair in the soup. Even if you finish first and second.’ It’s very different to my photography, where I regard perfection as the enemy of what I do, but when you’re shaving hundredths of seconds off laptimes, perfection is what you chase in F1.
There is no such thing as perfection… It’s only the pursuit of perfection
The Austrian former racing driver and billionaire is CEO and owner of a third of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, where he has won eight consecutive World Constructors’ Championship titles and oversaw Lewis Hamilton winning six championships with the team. Wolff is fluent in English, French, Italian and Polish as well as his native German, but the language he’s most proficient in is motorsports. As he leans over monitors and converses with engineers and his drivers, Russell and 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli, he exudes an authority; a paternal, quiet calm. I have my teenage son along with me as my assistant and Wolff is incredibly warm and engaged with him despite the pressure on him in the moment. He also seems fair and kind with his team and with people’s mistakes, without being weak – a very together, impressive person. He reminds me of the command Ridley Scott has of his epic crew on set.
It’s little surprise that Wolff was sought out for advice and cameoed in recent blockbuster F1: The Movie. ‘We were involved from the early, early stages giving input and feedback on how to do the cars,’ Wolff says of the experience. ‘Then I was asked whether I wanted to do a cameo. I said yes, without really knowing whether that would happen or without knowing what it would mean. And then the filming felt horrendous for me because I was out of my comfort zone; I didn’t feel it was coming across authentic. When I saw myself onscreen it made me cringe even more. But the feedback was positive, so I’ll go with that opinion rather than my own!’ As a principal, what does Wolff make of Brad Pitt’s rebel character, Sonny Hayes, a brilliant driver who breaks all the rules? How would he deal with him? ‘Well, obviously it’s a Hollywood movie, but breaking the internal rules or not following team instructions is something that I would never believe in the team. But it was quite entertaining to watch it nevertheless.’
The drivers aren’t the only team members warming up before the race. The pit crew stretch with bands in the garage, getting ready for the incredibly physical task of prepping cars in seconds when drivers come into the box. Russell, out of his dressing room, is now totally focused and in the zone. I don’t speak to him at all at this stage of prep; it would be like trying to chat to a stunt performer before a set-piece. Russell and Wolff swap notes with the unflappable Bradley Lord, Mercedes’ trusted chief comms officer. The atmosphere is intense as the race gets underway, with applause held back until the task is completed.
When I join the team again in Monaco, I find Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes junior driver who was given Lewis Hamilton’s seat when he left for Ferrari after 12 years. He’s taking his school exams while also placing third on the podium as one of the youngest drivers to ever do so. It’s late May and the temperatures are rising, so Antonelli wears an ice vest to keep himself cool before he departs for the drivers’ parade pre-race. Before he leaves the garage, he looks through the data with Wolff. Wolff admits that when he watches a race he’s looking at three drivers: George, Kimi and Lewis ‘because he’s still in my heart’.
When I watch both Antonelli and Russell pull on their racing suits and balaclavas just before they get in the driving seat, I see another switch in concentration. We are stepping up another gear. The noise when the cars race is astonishing. Later, when Russell returns he’s wearing a cooling jacket packed with fans that makes him look like an astronaut. Antonelli chats to his race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who was previously engineer for Hamilton and has endless experience to impart to the youngest racer in Formula 1.
Experiencing the race from the paddock rather than the stadium is a unique one. I was amazed by the spotlessness of the garage (even tire marks are removed from the garage floor) and how impressive the Mercedes-AMG team are – a 58-headed monster. It gave me a new appreciation for Formula 1 and the real risks involved. It reminds me of the idea that a good movie has jeopardy and I’m now intrigued to see how the rest of Mercedes’ season goes. Wolff isn’t just looking at the season though. ‘My objectives are very long-term objectives, not for a single weekend or a single season, but trying to be contributing to setting an organisation in place that can win sustainably over the next five or 10 years,’ he says. ‘All of the decisions taken are always with a focus on that.’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
