Baku, January 16, AZERTAC

Mercedes Formula One boss Toto Wolff has signed a new three-year contract with the team, keeping him in charge at Brackley until the end of the 2026 season, according to The Athletic.

The deal ensures Wolff will remain at the helm of the team through to the next cycle of F1 regulations, which will arrive in 2026 with overhauled car designs and new power units.

Wolff, who has overseen Mercedes’ F1 operations since 2013 and won eight constructors’ championships, revealed his contract extension in an interview with The Telegraph on Monday.

Wolff is also a one-third shareholder of the Mercedes team alongside Mercedes-Benz and INEOS, and agreed with his counterparts, Ola Kallenius and Jim Ratcliffe, to continue in the role.

“I’m not going to try to hang on to a position that I think somebody is going to do better than me,” Wolff said in the interview. “I make sure that I have people around who can tell me otherwise.

“In the end the three of us decided: ‘Let’s do it again.’”

Since its last constructors’ title in 2021, the same year Lewis Hamilton controversially missed out on an eighth world championship to Max Verstappen, Mercedes has struggled to recapture its previous dominant form.

The team lagged behind Red Bull and Ferrari when the new technical regulations were introduced in 2022, limiting the team to a single victory that year through George Russell in Brazil.

It then endured its first winless campaign since 2011 last year, but managed to beat Ferrari to second place in the constructors’ championship as it focused on overhauling its car design concept.

Speaking at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last November, Wolff said Mercedes had “Mount Everest” to climb in the race to catch Red Bull after the team’s record-breaking dominance through 2023.

“The sport, this is a meritocracy, whoever is doing the best job wins, and if someone is doing a much better job than everybody else, then they’re winning 19 races,” said Wolff.

“We’ve just got to do a better job, and I don’t want to wait until 2026.”

While there was never any doubt about Wolff continuing to lead Mercedes heading into 2024, the contract renewal reinforces his commitment to help take the team back to the top in F1.

It also ensures he will continue to work with Hamilton, who signed a two-year contract extension through to the end of 2025 last August. Hamilton has won six of his seven world championships with Mercedes, all while under Wolff’s stewardship.

Wolff was adamant in the Telegraph interview that Hamilton could still win another championship and pull clear of the tally of seven, a record he shares with Michael Schumacher.

“The answer is clearly yes in capital letters,” Wolff said. “There is a reason Lewis is a seven-time world champion, and has broken all the records. His ability is on a different level.

“If we are able to give him a car that he actually feels, that drives in a way that he can trust, he will be on the level that’s needed to win the championship. Thirty-nine is no age.”

Hamilton and Russell will get their first taste of the W15 car at Silverstone on Feb. 14, when the team is set to complete an initial shakedown ahead of F1’s formal preseason running in Bahrain one week later.