Ex-team owner tells Toto Wolff to ‘be a man’

Eddie Jordan was the team owner of the Jordan F1 Team from 1991-2005.

Former Formula 1 team owner Eddie Jordan has slammed Mercedes boss Toto Wolff for comments the Austrian made after Mercedes’ disastrous performance at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, where they finished fifth and seventh.

Whilst fifth and seventh isn’t ideal, Mercedes’ biggest issue was just how far off the pace they were, with Lewis Hamilton having finished 51 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen.

The W14 just wasn’t capable of matching the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari, or customer side Aston Martin, with Wolff having labelled the race as “one of the worst days in racing”.

The Mercedes boss went on to blame the car for not being “there at the moment”, something which infuriated Jordan.

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“Unfortunately it’s just, the car is just not there at the moment,” Wolff said after the race.

“Well, one of the worst days in racing, really not good at all. Just lacking pace front, right and centre.”

Jordan vented his anger in a recent podcast appearance, where the Jordan F1 Team founder called Wolff out for his “really crass” comments.

Jordan was furious at Wolff for having blamed Mercedes’ design team despite the Austrian being the boss, with the Irishman wanting to see Wolff “be a man” and take responsibility.

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“He’s the CEO, he’s the boss. The buck stops with him. This is happening under his watch… To blame or criticise anybody in his design team is actually disingenuous. It’s really crass,” Jordan said on the Formula For Success podcast.

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“I hate to hear that, because he must be a man, stand up and take it on the chin and say, ‘my team, my people, we have failed to get the job successfully done at this moment.

“However, there are times ahead that we’re looking forward to and we will be there much stronger than we were in 2022’.”

Whilst he was far from impressed with Wolff’s reaction to the Bahrain GP, Jordan does think the Mercedes team principal is “big enough and man enough” to sort the Brackley-based team’s issues and get them back to winning ways.

“I think that Toto is strong enough, big enough and man enough to front this up and actually sort it out,” said Jordan.