In Toto’s shoes. James Allison leads a Mercedes full of flaws
The Brazilian GP was the first Grand Prix that Mercedes spent without Wolff. Allison replaced him on a messy race
In the world of job, a common sentence says that no one is irreplaceable.
Is it really so? Mercedes’ Team Principal Toto Wolff had decided to stay home for the first time since 2013 and his place was immediately taken by the Silver Arrow’s technical director James Allison.
The result though, it was not this equal.
Mercedes led a clumsy race that makes its fans happy that the season is already over and the Brackley Team had already won both Championships. Valtteri Bottas retired for a mechanical issue with his car and Lewis Hamilton in the meantime was trying to overcome Max Verstappen with all that he had, without succeeding at it.
The apex of the mess was when the recently crowned World Champion tried to overcome Alexander Albon during the last laps of the Brazilian GP and he did not have luck. Hamilton tried too much and too late and took away also the Anglo-Malayan hopes to get on the podium for his first time.
What Steffan didn’t know... Someone had a special message of thanks they wanted to share with him!
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) November 20, 2019
📱👀
🙏 @LewisHamilton pic.twitter.com/4uVMbdB8Xj
James Allison said that he did all that he had to do and in the end his days were not that different than usual on race weekends – “To be honest, I have been doing the same thing I do when I'm here normally, just with a few extra things like this media meeting.”
Besides his words, Allison had to take in charge a few important duties, like all the media meeting and representing Mercedes in the usual “Coffee morning” that takes place every Sunday morning between the teams and Chase Carey.
“I was here as a technical director, I was not a Team Principal and Toto was doing his job on another place but I always enjoy coming to the track. What I am sorry about is the race, which was a mess.”
