Toto Wolff is staying on as Mercedes F1 team boss

Toto Wolff has signed a new contract with the Mercedes F1 team that will keep him on as head honcho beyond the introduction of new engine regs in 2026.

Revealing the news in an interview with The Telegraph, the 52-year-old is hopeful he can deliver a return to form in 2024, having gone through (by Merc’s usual standards) two dreadful seasons that have yielded just one grand prix win compared to Red Bull’s 38.

Wolff - who also co-owns the team alongside Mercedes and Ineos’s Sir Jim Ratcliffe - has been at the helm since 2013 and oversaw the most dominant era of the sport’s history as the Silver Arrows reeled off eight constructors’ titles in a row between 2014 and 2021.

Speculation about his future has come and gone over the years, with the Austrian occasionally skipping races and working from home to avoid burnout from F1’s punishing travel schedule.

And the team’s disastrous transition to ground effect aero left some (though not many) wondering if Wolff might decide it was time for someone else to take over.

It ain’t happening yet. Not even with Guenther Steiner now available for hire. Wolff is still hungry for success and the challenge of toppling Red Bull and Max Verstappen is too juicy to turn down.

You suspect he'd also quite like to prove a point to the FIA, having been the subject of a short-lived conflict of interest investigation that the entire grid and F1 itself united to shoot down a couple of weeks before Christmas. That one's still brewing in the background...

Anyone got any early predictions for the season ahead?