TOTO AND NEUBAUER
Mercedes’ success in contemporary Formula 1 is a thing of consummate wonder. Yet its origins are easily traced back to their last dominant F1 era, in the 1950s
Mercedes bosses past and present compared
THEIR physical forms could scarcely be more different. One, a rotund, jowly man; high waistband covering the 58-inch girth of his midriff ; soberly suited; a fedora to protect against both sun and rain. The other, tall, athletic, a former sportsman – altogether leaner and more youthful. Yet despite the generations and physical attributes that separate them, the late Alfred Neubauer and Toto Wolff share a unique bond: each has led Mercedes-benz to domination in Formula 1.
Neubauer has passed into fable, recalled variously as autocratic, domineering, punctilious and a hard-drinking disciplinarian. But also as a leader capable of inspiring great affection in his drivers – notably Stirling Moss, whose admiration for Neubauer was fully reciprocated. Whatever his reputation, there is no argument as to the success achieved on the watch of this burly Austro-hungarian, who rose through the Daimler-benz ranks
after being talent-spotted by Ferdinand Porsche in the 1920s, before going on to create a role for himself as ‘racing manager’.
It was in this position that Neubauer was closely involved with the awe-inspiring Silver Arrows of the 1930s: the W25s and W125s driven by Rudolf Caracciola, Manfred von Brauchitsch, Hermann Lang and Dick Seaman, which took on the equally stunning Auto Unions in contests that still loom large in motorsport lore.
But it is for his leadership of the 1950s Mercedes F1 team that Neubauer is best remembered. Through 1954-55, Mercedes became the dominant force in F1, much as they are now, thanks largely to the brilliance of the Rudolf Uhlenhaut designed W196. They were also blessed with a fabulously starry driver roster that included Juan
Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss and Karl Kling. Fangio, who started 1954 with
Maserati, won eight times in 12 races for Mercedes, after their world championship debut at that year’s French GP, to secure back-to-back drivers’ titles in a dominant manner. Moss, cast in the dutiful understudy role, took his first win (his only one with Mercedes) at the 1955 British GP.
Had a Formula 1 constructors’ title been in place, Mercedes would have swept the board. As it was, fate had scripted a rather different destiny for the Silver Arrows. The 1955 Le Mans catastrophe, in which 83 spectators and Mercedes driver Pierre Levegh were killed by components of his disintegrating car, as it flew into a grandstand following a collision with Mike Hawthorn’s Jaguar, prompted Mercedes’ immediate withdrawal from motorsport. They would not return as a ‘works’ F1 team until 2010.
Since then, of course, they’ve built on the basis of the Brawn GP team they acquired at the end of 2009, to become the benchmark of hybridera F1. And this year, Mercedes could match the record of Ferrari from 2000-2004 in winning five consecutive F1 title doubles.
Comparisons between these two Mercedes eras, separated by more than five decades, may seem fatuous, so vast is the gulf in, say, expenditure and media exposure between ‘old’ and ‘modern’ Formula 1. But thanks to insights left by Neubauer in his autobiography Speed was my Life (Männer, Frauen und Motoren in the German original) fascinating parallels can still be drawn between mastering modern Mercedes and being Merc’s main man, back in the day.
And so it is, appropriately armed with a copy of Neubauer’s memoir, that F1 Racing sits down with Toto Wolff to chat about the still-relevant legacy of his storied predecessor.