The era and aura of Formula One’s team bosses — the guiding lights with exclusive control — have both expired.
That is if Mercedes supremo Toto Wolff is to be believed in his bold assertion, if it is anywhere near accurate and rational rather than an outburst of mindless blather. The Austrian, who has failed for whatever reason to hang onto the splendidly proven Ross Brawn, mastermind of seven world titles, with a distinct lack of far-sightedness, will, I am sure, be widely scoffed at along the pit lane for his forecast.
It seems to me that Brawn found himself the centrepiece, the victim, of an internal switch of thinking that was to dent his undoubted brilliance and reliability as a power to be trusted.
Wolff, I believe, alienated Brawn when he recruited Paddy Lowe and diminished Brawn’s status.
In effect, Wolff is opting for sub-divided control — a brand of committee rule — when quite clearly any F1 team benefits from the unchallenged authority of one man in charge who is ready to accept responsibility.
Quite ridiculously, executive director Wolff cites football as a sport that benefits from his notion of split responsibilities.
He says: “You don’t have the equivalent of a team principal in any other sport. Look at football. You have a trainer, a team manager and then a man looking after the commercial side.”
That may be so. But nobody overrules Jose Mourinho at Chelsea or Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. They are the principals.
He has lost sight of the glory days of football when the singular likes of Bill Shankly at Liverpool, Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Malcolm Allison at Manchester City and Don Revie at Leeds United were undisputed principals — bosses — and they ruled their world.
The same applies in Formula One.
Brawn, with whom nobody was in a position to argue at Benetton and Ferrari, Ron Dennis at McLaren and Frank Williams in the team that bore his name were all one-man bands playing to their own tunes. And winning.
Wolff goes on: “You might say that a team principal is a legacy of the ‘grass roots’ era of Formula One.”
And he adds: “The position is a thing of the past. Paddy Lowe’s skills are on the technical and racing side and my mind is set more on the commercial and business side.
“The focus is not on how we divide the work, it is on the fact that we work together as a team to combine our skills.
“A team principal is an outdated mind-set,” is his unequivocal mantra.
Spoken, well, like a team boss who does not permit or expect to have his opinion doubted.
— The writer is a motorsport expert based in the UK
