Toto Wolff and the Mercedes Formula One Team

Name: Toto Wolff and the Mercedes Formula One Team (English version)
SKU: 522075

Elberse, Anita; Moreno Vicente, David

Product #:522075

Supplier:Harvard Business School

Discipline:General Management

Details:Case (PDF) • 30 pages • 2022-02-01

Subjects:

Management Organizational culture Teams Leadership and managing people Business management Collaboration and teams Leadership and managing people Management

Industries:

Media, entertainment, and professional sports

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$11.64

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In December 2021, Toto Wolff, team principal and chief executive officer of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team (the 'Mercedes team') is preparing for the start of the 2021 Formula One ('F1') season's last Grand Prix, in the United Arab Emirates. Everything the team has fought for this season is on the line. The Mercedes team is in an excellent position to win an unprecedented eighth consecutive Constructors' Championship, the award for the best overall team effort in F1. Meanwhile, driver Lewis Hamilton is tied with rival team Red Bull's Max Verstappen in points, and with another victory can clinch a record eighth Drivers' Championship, the award for the season's best driver. Win or lose today, the Mercedes team under Wolff's leadership has every reason to claim the title of most successful team in the history of F1, the world's most prestigious motor racing competition-and, with its remarkable seven-going-on-eight-year winning streak, perhaps in all of sports. Will Wolff again lead the Mercedes team to a win? What is the secret to his and his team's success? And with a new set of challenges on the horizon for next season-most notably, a major rule change governing aerodynamics that could upend the teams' competitiveness-how can Wolff and his team ensure that Mercedes stays at the top?

Learning Objectives

To explore effective leadership and team-management strategies, in a high-pressure, highly complex context like F1 racing. To appreciate the challenges in creating-and maintaining-a winning culture. To analyze approaches to motivating individuals and teams. To understand how leaders can best approach balancing a set of vastly different stakeholders-here, most notably superstar drivers, engineers, sports officials, financiers, sponsors, and fans. To examine how a leader like Wolff can best approach investments in talent and capabilities so as to position his team for long-term success.