Toto Wolff refutes rumors that failure of ‘zero side pods’ concept is the reason for Mike Elliott’s exit from Mercedes

Toto Wolff also went on to compliment Mike Elliott's service to the team.

Toto Wolff refutes rumors that failure of ‘zero side pods’ concept is the reason for Mike Elliott’s exit from Mercedes

Mike Elliott and Toto Wolff (via IMAGO)

The Mercedes racing team is known for experimenting with new concepts in their cars, and earlier this year, they introduced a ‘zero side pod’ concept to the W14. This change made the W14 perform poorly compared to Aston Martins at the start of the season. Now that Mike Elliott has left the team, there’s speculation that it’s because of this mistake, but the Mercedes team principal has negated all such claims.

Toto Wolff exclaimed that the flawed design had no role to play in Elliott’s departure from the team. The Austrian claimed that the decision was not of a single person and added that the team tried to design the fastest car.

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No, it’s never the decision of a single person, we as a group, we’re trying to build the quickest race car.
Wolff said as reported by crash.net

The 51-year-old added that the team was so invested in the zero pod design that they didn’t get on top of it when the car produced bad results. Hence, the team changed the old design to increase its competitiveness. Subsequently, he added that both things have ‘no correlation’.

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We were so far down the route with that concept of car that we thought maybe we’d get on top of it but we didn’t. That’s why we changed it and put lots of plasters on the car to be more competitive like we’ve seen now. That hasn’t got any correlation.

Toto Wolff complimented Mike Elliott’s service to the team

Elliott served the team with an astonishing 11-year stint and helped build amazing cars. Elliott’s departure was undoubtedly a shock for everyone as well as Toto Wolff. The boss claimed that Elliott was the ‘number one employee’ in the team for many many years in terms of his performance and skills for the work he did.

Toto Wolff and Mike Elliott
Toto Wolff and Mike Elliott (via IMAGO)

Finally, he added that the team will miss one of the cleverest people in the industry. After a 23-year stint in Formula 1, the boss commented that it was hard toll on him over so many years. Wolff also added that Elliott was the type of person to say ‘you know what, I need to do something else’ rather than fixating on a single thing. He admired this quality of Elliott and called him strong.

After the mid-season upgrades to the car, the W14 is producing great lap times and giving amazing results. Lewis Hamilton seems to compete oftentimes with the dominant race leader Max Verstappen. With Elliott’s departure from the team, the car for the next year would be exciting to watch as there could be a huge amount of changes to the car.

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