Toto Wolff
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Where's the elation? Why aren't I whole? Why don't I feel content? Why am I still scared? You're absolutely right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, great. So this is my huge fear is that my motivation for the last 49 years has been, you're lazy, you're a piece of shit, you're a failure, you're an embarrassment. And now get up and do things to disprove that theory. And so the great fear of mine is, can I write from a place of happiness and love? Can I act from a place of happiness and love and not fear?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Could I win from a place that's not fear-based? And that's a leap of faith. I'm like midway there. I'm not where you're at. I don't fully trust that without some bit of cancerous rumination, I'll actually be motivated. But you have two years to get over this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
A lot of these different tech gurus have this built-in moment in their schedule. For some people, it's like four days a month or it's a week a month or it's a month a year. Bill Gates' reading week. Yeah. takes that stack of books and he sits in his little cabin and he allows himself to stop staring at the thing in front of him and get that kind of wider perspective. You can't really do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Or how would you do that? Because you have 23 races and then...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That makes sense. And I relate to that. I need a certain level of distraction where you're right. The subconscious is driving the car. I'm not actually driving the car. It's just happening. And that's the perfect amount of activity that allows me to wander in my head because I'm doing something. So I'm kind of liberated to do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
My dad lost everything too, by the way. My dad was rich, then poor. Filed bankruptcy three times before he died.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Do you know what that fucking garage is all about? Is that I wanted the cool BMX bike. Kids had the cool BMX bike, the GT, the Haro, the Hutch, and I didn't. Compensation mechanism. Yeah, and I wanted that fucking bicycle, and this is the bicycle. I'm still healing the wound of the bicycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The problem with those cars is impossible to work on, but continue. I love them. That's Miami Vice. That's Miami Vice. Ground effects.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
930. That was exactly. Yeah, slant nose. Oh, baby. I do think when you don't have a dad around for some of these pivotal rites of passage, you have to go get a lot of these exterior things to comfort yourself that you are becoming a man. Do you relate to any of that stuff? The masculinity portion?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. That's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think that's kind of rare. Is it? I think so. And I don't know what part is American and what part is your culture and being European, but I don't know America, you know, it's like do this, make this, be this, be special, be unique, be individual. And then you do those things and what you kind of feel like is, oh yeah, and all I've accomplished is I've kind of alienated myself from everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It doesn't feel as fun as I thought it was going to feel like. You start questioning the whole promise of it, but I'm delighted that's not happening for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Really quick, who are you going to show? Was there a list of actual people or is this an idea of people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I completely relate to that. Yeah, as I say, you shouldn't ever compare yourself to someone else. You should only compare yourself to previous versions of yourself. The things I didn't fantasize about, that I've gotten, because I've gotten a lot of stuff I wasn't even bold enough to fantasize about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And those things are really fun because I didn't have a fantasy and an expectation of how I was going to feel and how much I was going to like myself or what kind of self-esteem I would have. I didn't have anything built on top of this fantasy. So the things that have happened that were unexpected, now those I really can enjoy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't want to downplay how much joy I do get out of this crazy privileged existence I've had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Feel free to use that pillow as well if you need it. This sucks. We're getting a new couch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's more of a cliche. The next five-foot-tall Indian princess? Of course, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, you're fine. Can I put the feet on? God, you're fucking gorgeous in person, Monica.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Now, I do have some questions about how you got to where you ended up. There's a couple of gaps in what I can learn about you that are curious to me. Like one is you go at 18 and you see Formula One or you go to some racing. No, not Formula One. Okay, but you go to some racing event and you go, I want to do this. Now, 18 is too late for you to do that. Much. We know this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
A bit taller than me. A tiny bit. But you're better trained. Listen, there's a lot of nerdy things I did today. I was going to wear bigger shoes. Oh, you were? Because I hoped to be as tall as him in the photo. And I even considered putting on my work boots. And I'm like, you can't cheat. What are you wearing? No, I'm wearing flats. Okay, good. You're on the floor too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You had to be karting at six. So how on earth did you end up racing Formula Ford without the karting background?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I manifested that, yeah. Just enough horsepower to crash into a tree.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But yeah, that crossed my mind as you just saw. I opened one of my garage doors hoping you would be interested in my cars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I got that pretty fucking close.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's not 175. It was 170. I was off by four. Is it 179? Divide four by 175. I don't know what percentage I was off. That's less than one percent. Yeah, but is it 179 straight or is it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's too fast with the puncture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's not what you want to hear.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That means I'm going to go get someone to tell you your spine is injured. Bad news. Exactly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right now you're really feeling some tingling. Yeah, now you're feeling it. I can't feel anything anymore. Go to move it. Oh my God, I can't move it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You were not with Susie yet. 2011, you got married?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
She was also a development driver for Williams for F1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. But you didn't know each other or you just in passing? In passing. And that's how we started. What did she say?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So the accident was- Can I see a picture of how perfectly programmed Susie was to meet Toto? So Susie's dad owned a motorcycle shop in Scotland.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
She's Scottish. Her mom came in to buy a motorcycle, presumably in the 60s or 50s or something early for a woman to walk in and buy a motorcycle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So then the owner fell in love with her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, so sorry. Sorry, Sally. He didn't mean it. I was selfishly putting her at our age. She's just not. But if your mom and dad are motorcyclists and the dad races and then you race all growing up, you're like, yeah, I recognize this. This is my dipshit dad. I think I love him. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But, you know, Susie, karting champ, woman racer of the year multiple times, one of the only women to ever drive an F1 car, development driver at Williams. So cool. Driven in practices at F1. She's a bad MF-er.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, we really should be friends then. We should be. We've got a great guest house. Okay. You saw the cars you can borrow. I know you're only legally allowed to drive that E63 wagon, but that's fine. No, I drive all your vintage car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And a helmet. My number one crush is here today, Toto Wolf.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. Yeah. So I had the same experience. I tell my daughter, she already rides a dirt bike. I say to her, look, I'm not pressuring you, but if you want to race karts... I'll race old man class. We have a tour bus. Let's do this. You and I will go to races. And she's like, all right, let me try it. I take her to K1 and she goes out in a group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's under 12 and there's like five boys older than her and they're way faster than her. And she gets a little intimidated and she comes off and she goes, I don't want to do this. And I go, Okay. Yeah. Because I'm trying to give her the childhood I was dreaming of. And you just have to let it go. Maybe it comes back. Well, now we're 11. We get into the situation you were in.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So we'll resume the story. You're 18. You go to this thing. But one second for the 11-year-old.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But you can at least relate. You go there, you got high hopes. This is going to be this wonderful thing we share. And they go, this isn't for me. This is your dream. And you go, okay. This is a fine thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
She's doing musical theater. I would cry at either. When I watch her sing, I cry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You just want them to love something. I want them to love something. I don't care what it is. Just love something and chase it. That's all I want for you. I want you to be on the chase.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I was more lost than you can imagine at your age. Relax, breathe. Well, then that's my next mystery. So you pivot again, you race for a while and you're good. You're not good enough to be an F1 and you're likely too big. As I tell everyone, the only reason I'm not racing for AMG is because I'm too tall. We would be the ones with the earrings and championships under our belts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's rare you hear a tall guy complain about being tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Poor us. We all try to be small. My shoulders are just too wide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm so sorry. Also your biceps. You know the biceps would be a real problem. But you pivot and you get into business. And as I understand it, as the lore suggests, You start raising money for startups or tech, internet. That's kind of newish. There's a lot of opportunities. And what you start doing is going to companies and saying, I will help raise money for you, but I want some equity. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Why the fuck did they trust you to do that? You didn't have any equity of your own to bring to the table, I can't imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You're like an agent, kind of. If it works out, give me 10%.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. Have you started to acknowledge the gift you and I were given? This has hit me over the last five years. As things have been explained to me and I've changed my opinions on things, I was brought home to a single white trailer. A ton of violent stepdads, addiction all through the family. It was a rough go. So when I heard white privilege, I was like, what privilege did I have?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Sure, some white kids have a lot of privilege, but I didn't have any. I was stuck on that. And then I had this moment of clarity where I was like, well, I was a fully... functioning addict for 10 years. I drove around the city all the time with Coke in my car. I was drunk half the time I interacted with police and I went, oh, that's the privilege.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
If I were black, I would be in prison for the rest of my life. End of story. I would be shot. I didn't talk to police with the right amount of respect. You know, there's no way. And I was like, okay, yeah, I do have a ton of privilege. I've just now come to own the fact that being 6'2 is a lot of it. I've directed movies. I've gone into studios and said, give me $30 million. You can trust me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'll lead this group of 100 people into this end zone you believe I can do. And a lot of it is I'm just tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes. So first of all, now we know each other for 45 minutes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. I don't know if you saw on the grid. Sorry, Monica, I'm going to wrap up the technical stuff here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, chicken or egg, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Have you had any pull towards it? What's your relationship with alcohol?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm about to defame Lewis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, you know, another reason we might not be seeing eye to eye on the height thing is yours came really late, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big distinction. I've been this size since I was 12. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Because Toto, he didn't give him. Lewis earned them. But he got seven championships under Toto's direction. That's right. You and I were working together for three years, and I bought you a C43 AMG.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, I had a huge nose, a terrible haircut. I was so skinny and tall. It was rough. Same for me. So more humiliation. Do you identify with being handsome? Like when people tell you you're handsome, do you accept that that's reality? Or do you still think, nah, I think you're confused? I think you're confused. You too? Isn't that wild?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm like, no, no, I'm an ugly duckling from high school. No one liked me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I look at you enough. I follow Susie's Instagram and she's really generous. There'll be pictures of you wakeboarding, pictures of you holding the kid over your head on the beach. She's helping us out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
rely on you you have to be realistic about who can do what there's been moments in our marriage where we should prioritize her career it's generating much more money and then there's been times where mine's generating more money so we got to prioritize mine absolutely and i was also put off you know when you're following this cliche of being with a model or i'm embarrassed for those guys yeah me too i see them and i go where's the personality where's the challenge this is embarrassing for you but i think you need to go through that
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's much better than an MV Augusta.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I attempted to raise my own self-esteem through other women. And I didn't like myself anymore when I looked in their mirror and I was over, I was like, oh, this doesn't work. I can't absorb their high status. I'm trying to, but I can't. I'm not following that cliche. And when I see men, like you say,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right, right. What did you think was at the end of this? Exactly. For people who don't know a lot about F1, and obviously this podcast is largely women and not F1 fans, although we've turned a lot of people into F1 through Danny Ricardo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Daniel and I are really good friends and he's been on a bunch of times. I wear his merchandise. Enchanté, he brings me that stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Super cool. He has a very great eye. He's a wonderful dude.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He's going to be fine for sure. So for people who don't know, Formula One is 23 races and it's all over the world. And not only is it all over the world, it is not planned with any seeming logic. So it's like you'll be in the Middle East one race and then the very next race you're in Europe. Then you're in the U.S. Then you're in Asia.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You live seven, eight, nine months of the year, weekly adjusting your sleep schedule by 12 hours sometimes. I don't know how that's manageable. How many miles a year do you fly? I don't know miles, but it's about 600 hours. How are you managing your sleep? What is your routine? I want to hear about how you exercise. You've got a gorgeous physique. Oh, it's gorgeous. It's not on your level.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, it's gorgeous, especially considering your schedule. I've talked about it with my friend, Charlie, who owns a CrossFit gym. He is an Adonis. And we both go, the other route to go would be Toto, which is like, this guy's clearly an athlete. He's not bulky, but he's lean. It's a look. That's what Monica, that's what everyone likes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's preferred. This is for other guys.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes, yes, this is. Still insecurities from junior high.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But you're not bulky either. What do you do for your physical fitness, for your diet? Anytime I learned something, we did the same thing. I loved it. One was, I eat the exact same meal every single day. But I want to hear about what you eat, how you deal with your sleep, and what's your exercise routine. And what is your kind of mental health approach
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
to the highest pressure job someone could have.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And can I ask quickly, he has a new helmet every race, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You guys are fun opposites.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We are very fun opposites. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is fun. It's a cool story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I never felt good. It got worse and worse. I tell my wife, I'm like, I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. But every other day I got to get in the car on the Island and go explore. I got to do something novel. I got to,
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
stimulate I got to meet some people I don't want to necessarily speak to people but I want to be in the middle and look at them yes a piazza in Italy yeah I can do that for seven hours exactly for dinner a few cappuccini and look at them and think about who are they what's their life is it as romantic as it looks yeah exactly yeah but I don't want to talk with them okay I'll do the talking okay yeah when you guys go on your buddy yeah motorcycle trip I'm listening
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think we're a good combo. So the mental health, when you're on the road and you are in the middle of the season, do you have a checklist?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, the exact same story, but a little different. They wanted to do a story on me for some TV show. And they thought, oh, this is great. Benedict, my son.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Let's see what he's up to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Ask him if he's heard of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
This is a good idea.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Benedict? Oh, I'm good. This is Dax. You're going to USC? Yeah. And what are you majoring in? In business. In business. You didn't get pulled towards film and television? No. I don't know if I like this. I don't know if that was the right move. Oh, boy. My sister was in the car. She's doing comms. She's doing comms. What's your name? I'm Rosie. Hi, Rosie. We've got a whole plan laid out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Your dad's going to start spending a ton of time here in L.A. at my guest house. So, obviously, you guys will be in the mix quite a bit. You're living downtown. Benedict, you're doing everything wrong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right? I'm fascinated by someone that can be as serious as he is to make that team function and then as goddamn playful and fun as he was outside of that. So fun. So if you're not into F1, doesn't matter. You'll still love this. That's right. Because we're mostly talking about kind of mental health and the struggles of being a manager and all these things.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You need to major in film directing. And you need to live in Los Feliz. And we got to get you straightened out. And I know we're running out of time. This is your senior year. I'm going to turn you over to your dad now. Your dad's getting frustrated. This is his time and not your time. That's the one phrase Dax knows. How much does your shirt cost? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, great, great, great. Okay, you need to be stimulated. What about sleep? How on earth do you deal with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, new goal in life. We're going to ride together at some point. We can, yeah. We can be far down the road when we're retired or something. Okay, let's start in Austria. First of all, we're both Capricorns. Even though I don't believe in astrology, I can feel your Capricorn. What is that? Very determined. My feelings are kind of secret. I can't show vulnerability.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Every hour and a half. They're going 17,500 miles an hour around a 24,000 mile object.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right, right. Or makes you get up and make a grilled cheese in the middle of the night. It's not ambient. And not, no. Or walk to the subway with your shoes off. Yeah, and when you're like, and you can't pronounce it. Well, I take a second one of these. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I know breakfast is two pieces of pumpernickel toast, extra crispy, tomato cheese? No, tomato ham. Ham, ham, ham, ham. And an espresso and a sparkly water. I don't do it anymore. What don't you do? I don't do breakfast anymore. That's done.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Half a glass of regular Coca-Cola. Yeah, not your half pregnant diet Coke. Right, right. You're disgusted by that. You're smarter than Bill Gates and I, but continue. You got me on that one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm on schedule. I have to win. I'm going to beat myself up until I do. I'm managing everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. I have just a couple of remaining questions. These are just curiosities. March 15, March 16. These are the names of your two companies. Are those people's birthdays?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. Just by coincidence in 2004, it happened to be March 16. No, I took the next date. Okay, so it had a reason at the beginning and then it didn't have a reason at the end. Breakfast we talked about. Yeah, working out because you're a gym person. I'm not a cardio person. Are you a cardio person? I hike. That's the extent of my cardio. I can't get on a treadmill. I can't jog. Cycling. Cycling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We're too tall for bicycles. We're looking like huge gorillas on this tiny little thing. Even me on the race motorcycle, I look ridiculous. People comment when I post pictures, I think I look so cool. And they're like, is that a normal size bike? Exactly. Normal size bike.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Does this sound familiar?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But in that dock, Valentino's my God. I mean, that is number one. People have Jordan, I have Valentino Rossi, the doctor, 46. He's everything. The spirit of him. He's so elegant. Everything's so great. He was not terribly far off Lewis in the car. I thought what he did in the car was...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think the braking on a motorcycle takes some real work. But my favorite part of that doc is Valentino Rossi. There's this great documentary where these two come together. They're both Monster Energy athletes, so I think it was sponsored by Monster. And Valentino gets to drive his F1 car.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And then Lewis rode Valentino's MotoGP bike, which is a fucking handful. This is like a 320 pound horse power one. Goes much faster than a car, but doesn't brake because obviously you have no contact.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And the corner speed's lower, but yeah, they're going 225 miles an hour at every track. It's nuts. But anyways, Valentino Rosso, he's got the cutest personality imaginable. And he is a Formula One nerd. He's been watching and he loves Lewis and he loves Bono. Lewis's race engineer who's always in his ear. So he's been watching for years and he's hearing Bono say to Lewis, push, push, push.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So Valentino gets in the car and he goes, hello, Bono? And he goes, yes, Valentino. And he goes, will you tell it to me? A push, push, push. And Bono says, push, push, push. And he's like, ah!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The world is a hostile place when you arrive. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Especially in Austria. Absolutely. Thinking about Detroit, Austria is more hostile. It depends if we're including homicides because I think Detroit has, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes, it was the purest moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You want to hear verbatim one of my questions to you? Yeah. Are there certain endeavors that are inherently antithetical to mental health? The goal of a healthy human should be to feel worthy of love and affection regardless of their status or accomplishments. But that simply cannot be the goal of a person pursuing victory or perfection. How do we make peace with that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Your human goals are antithetical to almost your career goals. As a human, what we would strive for is that I'm worthy of love and affection just because I exist. But in racing and business, it's not that. That's not the rules of the game. So you're balancing what you want as a human and then also what you want as someone engaged in an endeavor.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Wait till you see what's coming in noon. You're texting someone on your team. Help, help.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's not father-son?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't want to ask you this question because I don't think you're going to like it, but it crossed my mind. Was there any part of you that was relieved that Lewis decided to leave and that you never had to make that decision? Absolutely. You couldn't make that decision?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Now, I was shocked to learn this this morning that you're not Germanic. You're not Austrian. Your dad is Romanian and your mother is Polish. Yeah. And were they immigrants or had they grown up in Austria?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's so disrespectful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, I think it's heartbreaking, but I also think it's the best version of what could have happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think that's it for me. Like as someone who loved someone, even if I wanted them in my life still, I would understand like, yeah, that's what Schumacher did. That's what you do. I want the best for him, even though I'm going to aim to beat him next year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I had a little fantasy when he left that you were somehow going to get Adrian Newey and Max. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I also have that fantasy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Also, it sucks you were on the inside of it, so it's not as pleasurable. On the outside, what a year. What a year, yeah. What a fucking year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right. I've been in many fights on my own. I have a single question about that event.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The most improbable thing happened, which is in 2021, Max and Lewis entered the final race tied at 235.5 points. Something like this. It's .5. Impossible. Same points. And a half point somehow. Add up the improbability that he has 2,500 employees making a car. Red Bull has 2,000 employees. You have all those variables, different designs, two different human beings.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
They're finishing every single qualifying within a hundredth of a second. There's too many variables. It's impossible. Now you add in through all this dramatic season, there were points taken away. There were laps given back. There was judgment calls. They land at 235.5. It's not possible. The race goes on. Max is not going to win. He is behind three cars that have been lapped.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There's an accident. The race goes under a safety car. So everyone's bunched up. Now, here's my question. As I understand it, and I could be totally wrong, they unlap cars that have been passed. So the person between Max and Lewis, they're number one and two, but there's three cars in there, but they're in spots 18, 19, 20.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So the rules, as I understand them, is that under a safety car, the cars in between are allowed to unlap themselves. So they're allowed to go out in front of the lead car and join the back of the pack where they belong.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But what's really weird is that they don't unlap them right away. That to me is like, this is the problem. It's not like who did what. It's like, they should have been unlapped right away. They weren't. So four laps goes by and then they make a decision with one lap left to let them unlap. Max is on brand new tires. Lewis is on 13 lap old tires.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The safety car pulls up and Max passes him within two turns and he wins the championship. It would have been Lewis's eighth championship, which would have made him surpass Schumacher. The stakes could not have paused. I mean, the drama of it, it'll never get better. Now, my question, and when I've been in arguments with people, I'm like, are you saying that they don't unlap cars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Are you saying in that situation they shouldn't have unlapped cars?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So it's like the opposite. We are not Jewish. Wearing lederhosen and blowing horns, really saying I'm Austrian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It was like entitlement. I'm guessing though, because it was so disputable that to even say that sentence would have felt like it could have tipped it. I don't know. We would have said it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, and I entered the sport through Drive to Survive. Did you? Yes. Really? Okay. I was like, this is boring. They don't pass each other. What is this racing? Who cares? And then when I learned what's happening technically, I was like, oh, this is way more in-depth and interesting than it seems on the surface. And I think the drama helped the sport also.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We don't know really why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Charles is a supermodel. Danny was the cutest guy in the world.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There's only a couple duds in the whole group out of 20 guys. That's...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There's something for everyone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Now, that was one of my questions. I'm keeping you too long. Don't worry. We were on the phone for quite a while. You're a very smart person. You're also very incentivized because you own a third of the team. You're experiencing this from a lot of different viewpoints. You're a team principal. You got to win. But you're also an owner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Now, mom was a physician. What type? Like a family doctor? Anesthesiologist. Anesthesiologist? Yes. Oh, wonderful. She had all the drugs. Yeah, fantastic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And so I think you naturally saw that when Liberty Media came in and bought this and they expressed this goal of making the entertainment more present and the sport, but bringing the entertainment up. I've heard you talk about it. And you're like, initially, we were like, that's a little scary. But I think you're a business owner. And this worked. I mean, fuck.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The first time I went to COTA, the race weekend was 120,000. And it was 440 last weekend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It 4X'd. Yeah. Oh. So you, at some point in the first year, Mercedes and Ferrari didn't participate in Drive to Survive.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It was a blessing in disguise for the sport because so many other personalities were featured. True. We wouldn't have had Danny. We wouldn't have had Gunter. We wouldn't have had Esteban.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, it was a blessing. We got to learn a lot about a lot of other drivers. But at some point, you're smart enough and incentivized enough that you go, okay, great. So I get it. This entertainment thing is kind of working. And now you too have to assume a character in this soap opera. And I'm wondering, A, how easy that was for you to take on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I've been to races and been in the paddock and watched you walk around. You're a full-blown movie star at that race. You know, you're on your scooter and people are excited. Having to be a character in the soap opera, how has that been?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, that's hard though. It's super hard. It's tempting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I could show you right now exchanges between me and Brad Pitt talking about you. Seriously. I'm going to take full credit for this in front of you. He and I love MotoGP. I watch Drive to Survive. I text him, watch this documentary. Text me when you've finished. I know it'll be within 24 hours. He texts me in 16 hours. This is incredible. I'm so in. Next is he befriends Louis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm learning that he's going and hanging out with Louis. And then I said, yeah, but let's talk about Toto. And he said, listen, I have this text. This is going to kill you. Toto's also a great dancer. Yeah. Where did he get that from? He was somewhere and he saw you dancing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Toto's also a great dancer. I'm like, oh, fuck, this guy's got it all. Wow. Brad Pitt is completely enamored by you. That's a very weird turn of events at 45.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So he was struggling and mom was succeeding in a pretty dramatic way?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, this has been an insane pleasure. My very last thing is, Monica has only liked a single car. I try to get her interested in cars and she does not care. She likes a single car, the Mercedes 300 SL.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Although you'd be happy in that convertible. He and Susie look so elegant. I feel like I'm watching like a 60s Italian film.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You bitch. That was my invite. That'd be like if Matt Damon invited... Oh, that'd be like if Matt Damon invited you to dinner and you didn't bring me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So this was my very last one. So your wife is an incredible driver. I have to imagine she probably could turn better lap times than you at most places. Yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, she's really quick. Well, Toto, this has been as fucking fun as I could have ever imagined. For you, Monica, too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's just car stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We kept it pretty not technical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I saw Monica rolling her eyes a little bit. Oh no, we're talking. I also want to throw this out here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Before we sign off, you allowed a journalist to write a book about what you're going through right now, which is a lot. And it's called Inside Mercedes F1 Life in the Fast Lane. And you guys all participate. It's a very good book to learn exactly what's happening on that team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's cool. It's very interesting. It's very well written. And I recommend people who are interested at all in this to check that out inside Mercedes F1. It's been a blast. I hope we get to talk to you again and we will soon be on a twisty road in something. Yes, please. Oh, you guys will be first on the 300. Can't wait. All right. Be well. We hope you enjoyed this episode.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Good morning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We were both feeling sweatery today.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's pretty low. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He wasn't present anymore. Yeah, because you were eight when he got diagnosed and then you were 15 when he died. Yeah. Your parents also got divorced when you were eight. It had no relation to the brain cancer diagnosis, did it? No, the divorce was that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Um, yesterday was Thanksgiving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
In our universe right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. What time did you go to slumber?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, you had to do that at night.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
What time did you fall asleep?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. So not horrendous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, the day's over.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Hold on. So I too am in the intentions judging business. But when I come up with an intention, I do also evaluate. So when you were like, yeah, she wants it over fast. You're like, that sounds right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Right. Two beautiful dishes. Potatoes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. But for context, he is the team principal and CEO of AMG Mercedes, which... Won eight Constructors Championships in a row, which has never happened. No one's ever come close to that. For Formula One. His accomplishment there will likely never be taken away from him. It's just an unparalleled success as a team principal and a CEO. He's as good as you could be at this job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Sip up. Have plenty of time. Coffee drink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. And you were on a course of action at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Which was very late from my perspective, but I didn't know about the erroneous 4 p.m. start. So I was in a position of like, everyone's coming at noon and then at noon, nobody comes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
At one, nobody comes. And then I go to my insecure place of like, oh, wow, no one's coming to our Thanksgiving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And then I fast forward to whatever poor sucker does show up semi on time. They're going to be like, where is everybody? No one wanted to come to this party, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It was starting to get a little embarrassing, though, that the kickoff time was noon and we didn't have anyone at 1, I don't know, 30?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, it's not great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Chatter, chatter, chatter. I do. I do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't think guys at home similar guy chains are very specific. I'm only on a few of them. I'm on like one was Wabi Wab for Formula One.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And that's just, you know, so-and-so's getting fired. Yeah, they're fucking they're going to rule that, you know, it's not like with Matt and Charlie, too. Yeah, Matt, Charlie, Jethro, Wobb, myself. Who else is on it, Wobb? That's it. That's it. That's sweet. From all the boys that had to be in communication for F1.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
If you see something outrageous in the F1 community, that's where you sound off. But there's very little. Legistics. What? Very little logistics happening in there. Correct. And this is maybe, again, I don't know if this is specific to me or this is common gender-wise, but there's a lot of things. And you're not a fan of a lot of these methodologies I have. And I agree, they're flawed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But for me, they're most efficient. Like, I don't ever ask. When there's 20 people over, I don't say, who's in the mood for sushi? It's like, I know this group. I know what people like. A bunch of food will arrive and no one will care. As long as there's food there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Susie. No, listen to me. This is such a delight. If my wife dies and Toto dies, I'm sprinting to you, okay? I just want to say, what a dynamo. A beautiful race car driver who also runs an academy. What more does someone need? That's pretty cool. All right, I'm going to turn you back to him, but I'm delighted to hear your voice. Here's Toto. Hello. How fun. Okay, sleep well.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, I don't do the hour and 20 minutes to order thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. And yeah, exactly. And I'm not angry at the other approach other than when I'm hungry. I'm like, oh my God, how long is it going to take everyone to decide on this? And then everyone's got anyways. So similarly, it's like, here's a time to do a thing if you want to or not. There's never a bunch of haggling over it or fine tuning. Also a window that I would have never all blessings to my wife.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's confusing to me. Starts at noon, dinners at four.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's too gray. No. Like, if I'm at home, like, what does that mean? When are people coming? Do people come two hours before dinner?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Like, I wouldn't have told them when dinner starts. I would have just said, be here at two. A split in the middle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
We have to know, like, what— I cooked the most in my house yesterday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I made five trays of shitty biscuits. You did. Four pounds. Biggest yield ever. That was—they were fantastic. Fantastic. How many do you eat?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's a good amount.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Okay. Great. I don't know, four hours, take your pick, throw a dart at the board. Seems a little, and we got what we sowed, which is like you wandered in at 2.30, someone was there at 1.45, someone came at 3.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. I want to open the door like I'm in Sweden. Have you heard this joke about Swedish people?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Like if you throw a party and you announce it to your coworkers that I'm having a party at 5 p.m., they say in Sweden, the doorbell will ring. And when you open the door, all 52 guests will be there at two minutes before. Yeah, they're all there. It's not like one person's early. The whole group will be there at the exact same time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Whenever they're in the mood to get there. Which— They give them a nice four-hour berth and just land somewhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's my point entirely. Think about a Halloween evening party. If there's so much anxiety, it's, they said it starts at eight. No one's probably getting there at eight. You don't want to be the one person there. And then you're like, I guess that really means 10, 15, everyone, right? And you have all this anxiety and you can't plan it right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
If it was just like, forget the eight, forget the early arrival. Let's go with when people are really going to come. Let's say this party starts at 930.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, I think everyone's just responding to this willy-nilly broad strokes. There's a four-hour window of arrival time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. You're right, though. It was the pod, so I didn't get too insecure. But if that was like my birthday party.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
By 1.30, I would have canceled the birthday party. Like if it started at noon and at 1.30, it was still just my family sitting there. And then my anxiety of who's going to be the first one there to see that I'm a nerd, that no one came. I just canceled it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I try to make myself a little busy. I'm like, I'm going to go. I don't want to be sitting at the door when people walk in like, hi, and I'm on the couch in my Thanksgiving best. Anyways, spectacular Thanksgiving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Really another perfect Thanksgiving.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
What were your highlights? I'm sure you can guess mine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, that was your- Christmas volleyball.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
When I grew up, we went to a family reunion in Sturgis, Michigan at the LeBeaux's and it was at the motel and there's a conference room and you had a big, huge, I don't know how many there were of us, 35, there's six kids and carrying kids. And then you played football. Sure. In the field, it was cold as hell. All the uncles and stuff, kind of fun. I can't, the kids couldn't really play football.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The adults are running around tearing hamstrings and stuff. And the kids are like, I'm open, you know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
They're just out there running around, I guess.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes, and then you're a big boy like your uncles throwing a football. So we didn't have a sport contingency out here. And I really like now that volleyball might be an option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Secret turkey. And again, everyone already knows how it works. Lily assigns it. But I will say this year, I think people try to top themselves from the previous years. It's on a kind of an untenable course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. It was like that present.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He forged a knife and he made the handle out of wood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm guilty of the thing I've yelled at you about.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Her do not disturb ways.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Highlights of secret Turkey. What do you think were?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I'm biased a little bit. I'm so impressed with Delta's hot air balloon baseball. What a present.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
25 hour man, 25 man hours at least.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I want to talk about, you gave a advent calendar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You said Molly is Amy. You gave it to Amy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You purchased those.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
At a box store? Cardboard box store? Amazon. Oh, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, you can order them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
They come in a sheet and you assemble them?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Is that standard advent calendar?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, great. I'm glad you brought this up. I wouldn't have said anything, but I looked at it and it was enormously impressive. It was huge. I want to say it was like 28 inches tall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
18 inches wide, maybe 24 inches wide, 24, let's say. The top boxes were like pictures and drawings. And then I noticed on the bottom, I just noticed it says like 21, 22, 23, 20, like it seemed like- 22, 23, 24.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't know about advent calendars.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, I didn't say anything, of course. I didn't want to humiliate anyone. But you just told me you started phoning it in. I did not.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, beautiful. It was hugely impressive. I don't know why you're upset.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
If we become friends, text me. I do. Yeah, we don't need to talk on the phone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No, just at the end, it looked like at the end you were like, that's enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, so it was supposed to look like wood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
This would be a five-day project.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. I didn't listen to the end.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So the bottom was a choice. You can see from the lay person at the end, it just said, oh, wow, it was written in black.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It was brown and gold. Oh, it was gold too. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Did you use a hot glue gun?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Did you get a bunch on your fingers?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, wow. For structural integrity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh my God. Yeah. All ordered off of the internet?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Did you go, oh, Postmates. Okay. But you never went to an arts and crafts store. Did I go to Blick?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So that's, all this was leading up, we got derailed by my observation and my apologies, but I'm dying to know what's inside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Because I've never owned an advent calendar. I've only seen them in Christmas vacation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And there's chocolates inside usually? Normally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Are there any you can say that by the time this air show have opened those three days?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Ryan, too, because he's not a good secret keeper. Remember, he tells Amy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't want you to know about Cosby. What about Cosby? No, I don't want you to know. That's a real life thing, by the way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
All right. Beautiful ornament.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There's like 25 presents in there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The off days is a can of chocolate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's great. How long do you think it took you to make this present?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
My family had commandeered the entire dining room table, put plastic over it, and this was going on for three days. Yeah. And there were two full days where the three of them all sat at this table doing art projects, competing over the oils and the paint.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You know what? I got to figure out how to put it on her phone because she doesn't ever, ever answer. But what I think happened is I was asking you about your parents' divorce and Susie was always there. And then she hit a button to call to interrupt that question because she's like, oh, Toto's not going to want to talk about that. No, I talk openly about it. I know. You're wonderful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There were a lot of meltdowns and blowups. So God bless. I stayed out of there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I went up to the attic with my new light board to make my present for Matt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Which was a collage, I guess you'd call it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Maple Leafs logo. He's very into Muay Thai kickboxing right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So two Muay Thai fighters. Picture of him holding his baby that I got off of Instagram. And then above his head, a sim racing setup, which he loves. And then scissors because he's a hairstylist.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think the sky's the limit with this light board. It's an enormous cheat, but as we talked about, you and I, there's a lot of fun in assembling and then interpreting what your collage is going to be. Yeah. And now I have whole new fantasies about being able to use the light board to draw like a downtown cityscape and then put my weird characters in them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So hybrid through a little photorealism and then my weird characters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I've got a whole fantasy about my life with this light board. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. It's pretty fun. Speaking of the light board.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
On a previous fact check, I said I couldn't do a crow. Couldn't do it. But I got this light board and now I got a crow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And so now the holiday sweatshirt is complete.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So they're going to go on sale Friday, December 6th. That is in two days at 9 a.m. Pacific. So if you're in New York, that's noon. Dingle's lunch break. If you're in the mountain areas, I don't know, maybe 11.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Central. That's 10. I don't know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I can't keep Mountain and Central straight, which one's earlier than the other. But Pacific Time, 9 a.m. And you go to armchairexpertpod.com.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I really like it. Yeah. I think it turned out really, really cute. It did. Yeah. It's really nice. Your mouse is the best part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I read day one of the gift guide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And what are you going to guess my favorite joke is in it? There's one home run.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think some people might miss that. Maybe not. Maybe that's really obvious. But she only turned one.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Because this is who I am. Yes. This is later in the conversation, but I'll say you and I have a blessing. We're big enough and we fit the role enough that it affords us a willingness to be vulnerable in a way men have a hard time doing. And I think it's a luxury. Yeah. If I had a different life, it would be much harder for me. So I recognize it is easier for me than someone else.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, you blew out all of her candle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That was really funny. Thanks. Okay, so Secret Turkey was an incredible success. Other call out, again, Delta made a hot air balloon with like a structure and a floating balloon. It was incredible. Made the balloon a baseball. Ace loves baseball. Ballast on the side of the basket, like sandbags. It was so cute. Light fixture inside that I guess replicated the fire going up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't know if that was just decorative.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think she went and watched a tutorial on how to make a hot air balloon.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Laura gave me a beautiful photorealistic, I like saying that word. Yeah. Charcoal drawing of Little Mr. Texas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It should. Runner up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Runner up Little Mr. Texas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So I have this very, very arms distance relationship with him. We've done a few things together. And I'm considering, I think I want to take a picture of that and say I received this as a gift. How do you think that lands on him?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. You never know if stuff's flattering or is bordering on weird and obsessed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
There's a lot to unpack. If I, let's just reverse this. He sends me a picture that a family member or friend drew of me and gave to him. You'd love it. I'd love it, right? As long as it was a flattering picture.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, we're both kind of similar in that way. What do we call that? Attention whores?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Wait, what's going on?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't... You... Oh my God, you have... There's gifts already?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, is that an Emily burger? Pretzel bun? What in the world?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, my photorealistic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Can I get a better look at it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
How does... How do they find the picture of Emily Berger?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You know what's interesting? What do you think I'm going to say about this rendition of you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I don't really ever think you look like your mom. But in this rendition, you look a bit like your mom.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Somehow a bit of Nermy is in it more than normal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
This is a big moment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, gee. Original guide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You know what's going to be weird? Okay, so Kristen had you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And she did this beautiful painting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And all kinds of positive affirmations written along it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But I am starting to think, like, you have an inordinate amount of photos and paintings of yourself now for your house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, mine's right behind your head, so maybe yours should be behind my head. I don't know how that'll work. All to say, you have quite an interesting bank of art now you've accumulated. And I just wonder, like, on a first date when a guy goes into your house... And there's like a ton of paintings of yourself.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's fine, right? It'll be seen as playful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
When I was, yeah, 20 years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, boy. I didn't know what to do. Yeah, you had pictures. I just printed up photos from movie stills that they send you. Yeah. That was rough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's not us. It was really us.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I didn't know what to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Probably my own embarrassment from the past. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I guess we could have unlimited pictures of ourselves here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. That's really special. And on an Emily burger. Pretty jealous about the food item. I mean, I can't complain because I've got a Coney dog from Detroit, which is great. But boy, that's. It's really nice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I want to say there's something we earmarked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, yeah. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, I just simply want to say he's this. He won his fourth title in a row. It's been a really dicey year for him. Red Bull's finishing third or fourth in the Constructors Championship. So their car is not by any stretch the best. Yet he still managed to win.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
A lot of it because of this impossible rain race he had two races ago in Brazil. Yeah. Which, when they make the documentary like Senna about him in 20 years... This race is going to be a good 15 minutes of it. Started in 17th in the rain. Finished first by 20 seconds. Passed 11 people in the first 11 laps. Drive of his life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, in your teens, and this happens, but mom and dad separated. So that was separate from the diagnosis.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, Toto won. Toto, which Mercedes has been struggling so bad. Vegas, they came in first and second.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So this is good timing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He's a rascal. That was a reveal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, great. That's great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
It's definitely the team you would have wanted to support anyways. Yeah. It's the classiest team on the grid. Yeah. You wouldn't want to support an energy drink.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Nikki Lauda. I think that's what you're supposed to say. Nikki Lauda.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, that's why it's Lauda, Niki Lauda. I love Niki. He's a mentor, Lauda.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, how about this? I'm going to ask your name.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, boy, how do I do this? Okay, I'm going to ask your name, and you're going to say Niki Lauda.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
What is your name? Niki... Because louder sounds like louder. It's pretty good. One more time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But maybe it'll be fun a second time. What's your name?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, my timing got worse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And was horribly burnt in a mid-career crash and kept at it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Double lung and double kidney. Now we're like we're 20% through all the organs being replaced.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Kiss my hand. No, I just went like that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I always, I neurotically make sure the corners of my mouth. That's a rough one for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. A bunch of paste in there. I can't. Now you don't, you don't have it and you don't ever have it. Okay. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
When someone's talking with a really sticky mouth, that to me, I'd rather smell something. And I already said, smells are my worst.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I can't deal. If I'm watching like a Ted talk and someone's mouth gets really, really dry and starts doing that. I'm like, fuck, I can't listen to it. Cause even if I look away, I can hear it. I don't have misophonia, but I do just in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. It's just so sticky.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Yeah. Have you been jealous in movies when you watch the cat? What is it? Gentle flecked. Is that what it's called? Gentle flecked. You cut your forehead and your sternum and then your both sides. You do the cross. I like that pageantry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, and that brings me to one thing that we left out that we need to address. Definitely the best secret turkey of the night was Eric took... 30 pounds of candy and somehow made a painting of Lauren Matt's baby in candy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And it was at both times very good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And it was absolutely terrifying. It was one of the most horrific photo. It looked like the most evil baby in the world. It looked like Michael Myers. It looked like the baby was wearing a hockey mask, a goalie's mask.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes. And it was insane looking. And there was hair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Back to Knock on Wood, I was like, that feels like a curse. You thought it was a bad omen. I thought it was a curse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Like akin to a voodoo doll.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And the eyes are just black.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He doesn't know his powers as well as he should, though. He might have accidentally cursed it. Okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
In the whole country.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, we wouldn't count vehicular homicide.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Well, no, cause that wouldn't be intentional.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's small. So about 10 times the size of Detroit. Detroit's under a million people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yes. 10x the people and one-fifth the murders. 630,000 in Detroit. Oh, wow. So we could say that's actually a 50x population.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
They race around the island. It's the most terrifying thing. It is, in all of motorsports, the absolute pinnacle of craziness. It's the Mount Everest of motorsports.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay. And really quick, this should have been said at the beginning, but now we're here at the end. We are here early on this day because this is one among your most special days of the year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The thing I thought of, and this is a tricky question, but my dad got diagnosed with small cell carcinoma in August and he was dead on January 1st. So it was like a three month thing. And then my stepdad got prostate cancer and that was like a two and a half, three year thing. And I'll say the stress of having a loved one have a condition that you're not sure when the end is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You and Kelly are going Black Friday sale shopping. but at places without Black Friday sales, which is really incredible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And how many hours will you spend there?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Fun. What time will you start drinking at the mart? Right away when you get there? Mimosas?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
No flasks? No. No wine silks?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah, it's a very busy three days for you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I saw, and it was titled...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
The little prince. I thought this was very playful and fun.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. The first one was about her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Then it was- What's Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow about?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
That's another good book too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, wow. Oh, this might be your peak creative endeavor thus far. I don't know. Can I throw a book out as a challenge and then you got to come up with gifts that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Oh, and it would have our holidays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Okay, this is great. Ember mugs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
What if you're just putting stuff in here for sale on your gift card and you didn't tell us?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And you get updates. Like once a year, you get a photo of how big your... Okay. Sample.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Yeah. Well, we got a crop due.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Great. Okay. Well, holidays are upon us. I'm so happy. Thanksgiving was a blast. And now onward and upward onto Christmas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
Let's go. Pedal to the metal. I love you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I found the experience with my dad much easier to process. It's like, okay, this is happening. Let's spend the next few months together. I'll clear my schedule. I'll take you to your appointments. I find it very hard. And the notion that your dad had this condition for seven years, you're just kind of like, where are we at? What's going to happen? That feels very stressful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And then a guilt when you feel relieved it's over. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
He is a part of a really interesting new book called Inside Mercedes F1, Life in the Fast Lane. by Matt Wyman. Great read if you're interested in the workings of that team, which are really fascinating. That's a great starter. Please enjoy Total Woof.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
But to me, that was a huge gift because I had so much resentment. They got divorced when I was three. He had a great life. We lived kind of poorly. I had a lot of judgment of him. And there was the moment where I looked at him and you're right. He was not the big demonstrative alpha male. He was a little boy on a bed. And I thought, Oh, yeah. He's like a little boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
And he's always been a little boy. And I'm still a little boy. And you never stop being a little boy. And it actually dissolves so much resentment to see he's just a human that's scared. That was weirdly a gift.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
I think that's the weird piece you have to come to with your past, which is if you're lucky enough to end up somewhere you're happy with, as you have and I have, and I have kids I love so much and have a great wife, I go, well, fuck, I wouldn't tinker with anything because I still want to end up right here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
So I got to understand and process that it was hurtful and these things happen and also have a weird gratitude for it and like it too. Exactly my thoughts and my feelings. Did something prompt five years ago? Why five years ago did you start confronting that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team)
You're there. Absolutely. If I were you and I set out on this journey first as a race car driver, then pivoting and becoming an investor in teams, then becoming a team principal and a CEO and having all this success. Five years ago, you would have been on your six constructors championship in a row. And if I were you, I would go, wow, we did absolutely everything we wanted to do.