basti313 wrote: ↑09 Nov 2023, 11:06Ron Dennis did not have 33% of the team in his pocket. He could be pushed out as any other manager.CHT wrote: ↑09 Nov 2023, 07:52Toto's future as team principal for Mercedes now lies in the hands of Daimler and INEOS. I have reason to believe that INEOS must have paid a significant amount when they bought a 33% stake in Merc F1 during the peak, and Toto may have felt pressured to deliver the result for their other shareholders, ie. from 8 consecutive WCC to zero victories.TFSA wrote: ↑09 Nov 2023, 02:22
The media is pushing a rather sh*tty narrative, as always. And given that the media in question is The Sun and DailyMail, rather than actual Motorsports outlets, there's even less reason to take these two and their "calls" seriously.
If going from 1st to 3th to 2nd in the WCC out of 10 teams, is worthy of being fired over, then every top team would crumble, because their team principles would be fired left and right. Alpine, a midfield team, recently fired Otmar, and that wasn't exactly taken very well. And I'm pretty sure Red Bull wouldn't be as succesful as they are now, if they had fired Horner after 2014/2015.
This is plain and simply incompetent journalism at its worst, and using false tropes like "Formula One history suggests the boss must be first in and last out" isn't lending them any credibility either. I'm pretty sure Horner and Newey isn't the first in and last out, and I'm pretty sure Toto wasn't either when Mercedes were winning. Simply shaking things up for the sake of shaking things up isn't the way forward.
Toto's position right now may be very similar to Ron Dennis back in 2009, who was pressured to step down. If Toto cannot turn the team around I reckon he may have to take a back seat.
To push out Toto, Merc and INEOS need to be 100% sure and 100% aligned. I can imagine that INEOS takes this shunt. But Merc? Never...it would need a clear position from Ola against Toto and Ola would never weaken his own position with such a controversy step. He is always indefinite in these things.
So the only way I can picture Toto leaving is him just calling it a day and stepping back. But given the point that he even had a direct connection to the pit stand from the hospital...I do not see him being motivated to step back. He had the good and easy chance to take a 4 week break in a season where it does not matter, to test Allison on his position and did not take it. That is telling.
Ron Dennis was once the sole owner of Mclaren before TAG and Daimler bought into the company and Ron's stake in Mclaren goes beyond just F1, he was also the shareholder of the MTG including road car division.
Like LH, Toto has achieved 8 WCC with the team and there is really nothing much to prove, which is also the reason why I suspect that Toto may be looking at selling this stake in Merc F1 and needs the team to deliver results to bump up the value of the company.
By 2024 if Toto cant turn things around I suspect the team may have to look for a new team principal to chart the next chapter for the team, including possible new driver line up for 2026