Toto Wolff to be Aston Martin’s F1 team boss? The Austrian denies any rumor
With Lawrence Stroll interested in carving a slot in the Circus for Aston Martin, many speculations about Toto Wolff possibly joining the british team as the boss started spreading in the Formula 1 environment. But Mercedes’ team principal answered to all those rumors by ruling everything out.
“I’m not going to become CEO of Aston Martin, and I’m not going to make a strategic investment there either” Toto Wolff firmly stated to the Austrian newspaper Osterreich.
Just a few months after the outbreak of speculations regarding the Austrian as possible future replacement of Chase Carey as Formula 1’s boss, current Mercedes’ team principal shuts up a new wave of paddock voices: Aston Martin is working to join the Circus in the near future under the lead of executive chairman Lawrence Stroll. Canadian billionaire and Wolff have a long and strong friendship behind their back, and both have frequently made public their admiration for the work of the other.
It didn’t therefore take long for people to link the two names in a new F1 project with Aston Martin, but Wolff has a clear idea on what happened: “In most stories that could be read about it, people added up 1+1 and turned it into 3”.
If his long-term commitment is obviously still undefined, especially waiting for the unknown future consequences of Coronavirus’ outbreak, the short-term for Wolff is as clear as stable: “What is my current status? My participation in Mercedes is solid, my contract runs until the end of 2020, and we are still in good discussions about what we want to do together -he said-. Of course, this also has to do with my decision on what to do in 2020 and beyond. But I am and will remain the head of Mercedes Motorsport and F1 boss, and nothing will change in the short term. We are discussing. But all of this has been pushed into the background by Corona. We all have bigger problems to solve now - human problems in our companies”.
A strategic financial investment in Aston Martin does not appear as an option as well but, on the other hand, Toto Wolff has not denied the possibility of making a personal one.
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