Wolff Reveals Why He Reversed Decision To Not Be Present In Japan

Friday, 05 April 2024 at 13:30

Toto Wolff explained in an interview ahead of FP2 why he changed his original decision to be absent from the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix.

It was announced ahead of the race weekend in Japan that Toto Wolff wouldn't be attending the race personally. This decision was said to have been made well before the start of the season.

In such an event, the team principal would still be connected with his team through an online call, but he would hold less workload and could focus on responsibilities in Europe.

However, on Tuesday, 2nd of April, Mercedes announced the team principal had changed his decision and would, in the end, fly out to Japan.

It was suspected Wolff's decision had something to do with the current state of performance of his team, which has been struggling ever since the start of the season, but we waited until now for the Austrian to answer the question. He told F1 TV at Suzuka Circuit:

"Yeah, there was a race I didn't plan to do because there is so much going on in Europe. But, I think that in these difficult times, I want to be with the race team."

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"Especially, we are doing quite some experiments with the car today and tomorrow and this is the better place."

Mercedes cars struggled to consistently deliver performance, so the German team focused on this key area during the one-week break between the 2024 Australian and the Japanese Grand Prix.

Silver Arrows supposedly also brought some minor upgrades to the track, but we aren't expecting them to make a huge difference in performance.

So far, Mercedes seemed pretty good during the first two FP sessions. It was behind Red Bull but pretty much on pace with Ferrari, which is where the team would like to be, at least.

On the other hand, we have seen Mercedes perform well during a couple of practice sessions this year and then lose their speed going into qualifying, so it remains to be seen how the German team will perform.