Toto Wolff will miss this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix due to health issues. The Mercedes boss is often a regular, leading the Silver Arrows, but has previously missed races as he recovers from knee surgery.
The Austrian has previously skipped races on health grounds and, with 24 races to come in 2024, the decision has been made for him to skip the race at Suzuka. He also missed the Grand Prix in Japan in 2023 as well as the race in Qatar. He originally planned to miss the same event last year before changing his plans at the last minute.
Last year he bypassed the Brazilian Grand Prix and, in his absence this weekend, Wolff will be replaced by chief communications officer Bradley Lord as Mercedes’ representative at Suzuka. Lord is due to fulfill Wolff’s trackside commitments, such as talking to the media.
Wolff said: “Bradley [Lord] is the team representative – he speaks more carefully than me! It’s a coincidence that I’m missing that again. It’s not the jet lag.”
Mercedes have secured two podium finishes in the two races so far in China and Australia. George Russell has finished third on each occasion and that has left him third in the standings at this early stage. Andrea Kimi Antonelli has finished fourth and sixth in what is his debut season.
The Silver Arrows are not the force of old, but did win four races last season, which is the most they’ve claimed since 2021. McLaren have set the pace so far with two wins but Mercedes are looking to close that gap.
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, said after the race in Shanghai: “We’ve shown that we’ve got a car that works well over a range of circuits. What we’ve also seen, though, is that McLaren are probably the team to beat. Max [Verstappen] is pretty quick. Ferrari certainly don’t look like they’re far behind and they’ve had a bit of bad luck in the last few races.
“So it’s a pretty tight fight at the front. We’re working hard to try and bring development to the car because, as I said, we think that we need to close that gap to McLaren in particular.”
Shovlin also added: “It’s just exciting to start a season with a car that’s working well, that the drivers are enjoying driving. It’s much more predictable and we’re looking forward to the remainder.”
Suzuka is often a driver’s favourite but it will be the first F1 visit there for Antonelli, but he’s been backed to rise to the challenge. “A lot of drivers have that as their favourite on the calendar. First time for Kimi, though. And that’s quite a tall order for such a young driver to be going there on their third race. But he’s excited to drive that,” said Shovlin.
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