Toto Wolff is fast becoming the poster boy for the adage that if you want to know the true measure of a person, watch how they deal with the bad times rather than the good.
The Mercedes F1 team principal was a smooth, poised pitlane operator while his team was winning seven straight driver championships and eight consecutive constructor titles.
But since Max Verstappen burst that bubble in Abu Dhabi two years ago, the wheels have come off Wolff’s composure more than once.
This one, I think, we can all forgive him…
But then there was the woefully mistimed hubris ahead of the team’s one-win 2022 season…
Followed by the change-your-*******-car slap-down from the new sheriff in town.
And now there’s this. Offered the chance to make polite noises over Max Verstappen’s new consecutive-victories record last Sunday, Wolff’s dignity instead took a hard left into the crash barrier.
How graceless. How charmless. Ron Dennis could be hard-nosed but I think even the former McLaren chief would have done better than this.
Sadly, I have no doubt that were the boot on the other foot, Red Bull principal Christian Horner would have demonstrated pretty much the same childish nonchalance.
And would have fooled pretty much the same number of people.
It’s an irony of Formula One that while the sport relentlessly moulds materials and technology in its pursuit of perfection, human frailty rattles on unchecked like a 1970s Ford Escort.
It takes more than a wind tunnel to sort that out.
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