JANUARY 4, 2018

Wolff winter less stressful than 2017

Toto Wolff says he has enjoyed a more relaxing winter compared to a year ago.

"It's definitely less stressful than last year," the Mercedes boss smiled.

He is referring to the transition from 2016 to 2017, when the world champions had to suddenly replace Nico Rosberg with Valtteri Bottas.

Wolff told Kurier newspaper: "But who knows what's coming in the next few days. You never know what Lewis is thinking."

The Austrian was smiling and joking, but Hamilton can be notoriously fickle and a few days ago he deleted all of his social media content after a spate of intense online criticism.

But Wolff is happy with the Briton.

"His performance was unbelievable and he does not lack motivation even after four championships. I feel like he's seeing that Michael Schumacher's seven titles are within reach and we'll do everything we can to give him the car to do that," he added.

Finally, the Mercedes boss said he welcomed Niki Lauda's decision to quit his television role in order to focus on being the F1 team's chairman.

"It was a very personal decision and his role on the Mercedes supervisory board had nothing to do with it," Wolff said.

"But the good thing for us is that he now has more time, although in the past he was always the first into the paddock. When Niki gets to the motor home, the cleaners are normally still at work," he smiled.

(GMM)