Mick Schumacher’s hope dashed. READ MORE…

Mercedes AMG F1 pretty much had it all their own way in Formula One for the best part of a decade but now the tide has turned and on a number of fronts. Lewis Hamilton appears to be delaying any decision on whether to resign with his once world beating team until the ‘new Imola car’ has had a proper run.

The Hamilton contract renewal was supposed to be just a matter of “a few hours in a room together” according to Wolff back in January and now the Mercedes boss admits it is matter of embarrassment to Motorsport-Total.com.

“It’s super embarrassing. Every three years, we know that we have this moment. And it’s like negotiating the financial terms with your best friend with a close friend. How do you go about it?

Mick Schumacher’s hope dashed. READ MORE…

“Normally, you don’t have a situation like that. I want the best for him, but in this role, I need the best for the team. It may be the only time in our ten or eleven years that we’re together and our goals diverge.”

And its not just his star driver that concerns Toto Wolff at present as a number of Mercedes’ customer teams are flexing their muscles. It could be that the supplier of the most successful V6 turbo hybrid power unit I Formula One is set to see its stable reduced significantly as Aston Martin close in on a deal with Honda for 2026.

Another Mercedes’ customer team may soon deny Toto his demands despite being run by a senior ex member from Brackley and a close ally of Wolff.

James Vowles who has been with Mercedes since the inception of the works team which emerged from the Honda and Brawn F1 days left suddenly over the winter to join Williams as their team principal.

The famous British F1 marque had decided upon its drivers for 2023 prior to Vowels being approached and somewhat surprisingly had appointed American F2 driver Logan Sargeant.

Sargeant does not have a single championship winning season behind him in his entire junior racing career. His best performance was a P3 in Formula 3 during 2020.

Further across four seasons in F3/2 and some 82 races Sargeant managed to win just five together with claiming five pole positions along the way.

By comparison the much criticised Mick Schumacher in the same amount of time won both F3 and F2 titles with 11 victories and 8 pole positions.

Having been ditched by Haas F1 after two years, Schumacher is now Mercedes’ reserve driver, the team with which his father ended his F1 career with. Now reports from Germany suggest Toto Wolff is trying to revive the F1 career of their young driver….