Toto Wolff on the America's Cup, designing his own yacht and freediving with Lewis Hamilton

Whether it’s steering a Formula One team to success, racing on board an America’s Cup yacht or designing his own Wally, Toto Wolff knows how to push the limits, as Georgie Ainslie discovers.

I am trying but failing to get Toto Wolff on to the subject of superyachts. All in good time. For now, he is enjoying winding me up about fast cars. It is the week after the British Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton’s record-breaking and poignant Silverstone win, yet he is insisting with a wry smile that it’s business as usual at the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team headquarters at Brackley, Northamptonshire, from where he is speaking to me.

Well, perhaps it is, in that there are now 24 races in a Formula One season so each race does rather roll into the next, but it’s lost on no one how much that victory in particular would have meant to the team, to their outgoing driver or indeed to their CEO and team principal Wolff in a season that is starting to show signs of a turnaround for the eight-times World Championship-winning constructor, after a couple of years off top spot.

“It’s one F1 race. And we’ve got the next one to get ready for. Let’s go.” If you didn’t know him, you’d think he was being a fraction blasé about one of the more emotional moments we’ve seen in Formula One this season, but then he says, “I can be emotional. I cry when I’m watching Armageddon. When the guy says, ‘Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I’ve ever met,’ I get emotional with that scene.”

Surely it doesn’t get more Hollywood than scenes of Lewis Hamilton winning in a Mercedes, in his final season with the team, at the home of British motorsport, with Wolff presiding? He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly and there’s the hint of a grin. He knows better than anyone it was a blockbuster ending to a remarkable story, but the show must go on and next weekend there will be another race to focus on. Now we are ready to talk boats.

I ask him if he’s recovered from his day out as a cyclor on board Britannia with my husband Sir Ben Ainslie and his America’s Cup team in Barcelona. This America’s Cup campaign has been very much a 50/50 partnership between the British sailing team and the Mercedes F1 team, both supported by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who brought the two together. 

Mercedes F1 is leading the technical design programme for this edition and as someone who thrives in a competitive sport environment, Wolff loved getting out on the water in a physical capacity. “That’s the fastest sailing boat I’ve been on but there’s no moment where you don’t feel safe at 40 knots on foils. It’s so well designed. It’s a collaboration between them and us.”

The need for speed is clearly never far from his thoughts but a joyride on Britannia is anything but relaxing.

Putting an America’s Cup flying machine to one side, I ask him which is the other finest yacht he’s ever spent time on. Without hesitation he comes back with: “Faith. A Feadship. That’s the best boat I’ve ever been on. The Nordic craftmanship and quality combined with the aesthetics and interior design by Chahan, it’s most appealing.”

For someone who adores the elegance of a sailing yacht like Vertigo, appreciates the Maltese Falcon for its “extravagance” but also loves the speed and performance of a motor yacht, has he tried to design his own perfect yacht yet?

“I’ve played around with Luca Bassani, the president of Wally, designing a 65-metre carbon-fibre sailing yacht but we haven’t got beyond the sketching phase,” he says.

Why not? “When building a boat with one of those great shipyards, it will cost a lot of time because I would want to make it perfect. And I would have far from the necessary time to do this because when running a company, a sports team, the hours that are free are not sufficient for designing and building a boat. I’ve chartered a lot, I’ve owned a bit and every year that passes, I know a little bit more of how I want it.”

He has a keen eye for detail so I ask him what his non-negotiables would be for a yacht he would be proud to call his own. “Seaworthiness is non-negotiable. I would like to take a boat around the world. Also new technology in terms of emissions. And lots of space for tenders and sports activities.  I would like a big gym. I don’t think boats have big enough gyms. It would need to have a helicopter garage because you don’t want the aesthetics to be disturbed by a helicopter outside.” He’s clearly given this more than just a passing thought...

And the structure? “A steel hull; an aluminium superstructure. The length of the boat would need to be below 80 metres, 79 metres perhaps because otherwise you need a pilot to bring you close to the coast in France.”

What about the interior design? He is keen on aesthetics and knows what he likes. “I’m really into beige interiors. I like the tones that, in a way, reflect the surroundings. For me it would be beige for the sand and blue for the sea and the sky.” And for fun? “Well, it needs to have some mega tenders. A 100-knot Cigarette and a sailing boat. I don’t need a submarine.”

What would he borrow or adopt from the world of Formula One? “Some of the lightweight technology, the carbon fibre. For me the perfect yacht is an explorer style, like Andromeda, and I think the lightweight structures that we develop in Formula One – composite materials, carbon, is what I would try to implement.”

And crew? For someone who heads up a large team, does he want to embrace or escape that on the open waves? “I love crews. I love to have competent and humorous people around me in a crew,” he reveals.

I ask about an office space and admit my husband Ben and I are a disaster when it comes to sharing any kind of work area, on a boat or otherwise. How do he and his wife, Susie, a powerhouse in her own right and managing director of F1 Academy, make working from home, or sea, in any way pleasurable?

He is amused by the idea of Ben and I failing miserably at this and concedes: “Susie and I share an office space on a boat. When there’s an overlap, Susie, as she works for a large corporate in F1, needs that office. I am more flexible because I’m running the team and I can choose my environment. That’s the advantage of owning it. I have no problem in doing that from the sofa or the dining table.” I make a note to check this with Susie later...

He continues: “If I want to go for a swim, I can do that and come back 20 minutes later and be refreshed.”

But let’s be clear, Wolff’s version of a quick dip is far from a casual swim. In recent summers he has become fixated on freediving. So far, he has managed 35 metres down. A quick online search reveals that 40 metres is the official limit of recreational freediving, the depth required to become an instructor, and the depth where most divers transition from basic freediving equalization to more advanced techniques.

“My record for holding my breath is four minutes three seconds without oxygen help. I did 35 metres last year. But my freediving coach and I believe this year it will be 50 metres. That’s what we are doing this summer.”

So beyond the official limit then and by some margin. I can’t recall him speaking of his passion for freediving before and I’m intrigued to know more. Does he consider himself a risk-taker in life? “Only calculated risks, when I know the worst outcome wouldn’t change my life and I could cope with it. Never take the risks you can’t manage. With the freediving, it’s never going to a point where I’m going to the limit.

“I once had a freediving session with Lewis [Hamilton], and we were pushing the limits. The expert who was with us, he’s a world champion and after a certain depth, I think it was 26 or 28 metres, he said, ‘We’re stopping here because you two are pushing each other too much.’  I think this is the calculated risk. Lewis was basically a rookie and  I only did it for recreation.

“The limitation wasn’t holding the breath; the limitation was the equalization because at a certain stage the ears would give up or the technique wouldn’t be good enough. I would never dive beyond 10 metres without having  an expert there who could save me, who knows the procedures. It’s a calculated risk. When I go to 35 metres, he’s there and we run through the safety procedures. I know what to do when coming up. When I drive the Cigarette, I’m well aware of the risks and how to drive it and where the limit is.

“At these speeds, I would never take someone from the family with me. It’s a calculated risk. This is an important philosophy I’ve had all my life.”

But back to the freediving, because I want to know where is best for a deep dive and it turns out the place he calls home, which is Monaco for the Wolffs, is a perfect spot. “There is a shipwreck in front of Monaco, in front of the Oceanic Museum. It’s at 35 metres. We have a boat and then there’s a little crane with a line that you put down with a weight, as deep as you want to go. I’m gliding with my hand around the line, head down. The line is important because you lose your orientation because it’s only water around you, only blue. 

"You slide around the line and then you equalize the ears. There is a huge serenity that comes with it. It becomes tranquil. Your pulse goes down. I love the direction with the water. I like to look at the watch to see how deep I am. The deeper I go the more pleasure I have because I’m competing against myself. Then when I reach the ground, it’s almost like I want to stay there. But that is also the risk, because you need to be careful of depth sickness. Nevertheless, it’s just fantastic to be down there.”

Wolff also enjoys Monaco above the waterline. “It’s a 360 place. We are very blessed to have this possibility. It’s a place that people choose for many reasons but for our family, it’s because of the lifestyle and the safety.”

Of course, for a single weekend in May every year, the Formula One circus rolls into town and takes over. “That weekend is madness,” admits Wolff, “but we need to appreciate it because that is a lot of the appeal of Monaco. I go to the apartment, I take a tender from the Meridian or the Monte-Carlo Beach hotel, I drive straight into the paddock, and I drive straight back. 

"This year, the team had a collaboration with Ritz-Carlton, and we exclusively chartered the Ritz-Carlton yacht Evrima. I spent pretty much every day there for events and it was unbelievable. It’s a cruise-sized superyacht with all the amenities a superyacht would have. They did a super job, and they are building a second one now."

I suggest that the one drawback of superyacht ownership must be the desire and pressure to constantly upgrade; after all, there’s always someone with a bigger boat. “Bernie Ecclestone said to me something that resonated a lot 20 years ago; ego is expensive.” It’s a great line, I say.

He adds: “If you want to compete in that space and you have ego, you will spend a lot of money. It will give you some sort of satisfaction to have the biggest boat. I have zero of that need.  I think ego is good. I love people with ego when it’s channelled in the right ways, because then it’s a force. But someone whose ego has run away in superyachts is ridiculous to me.”

So when there is enough time to design and build the perfect explorer yacht for the Wolff family where would Wolff take them in it?

“I’m in love with the Costa Smeralda,” he reveals. “Everything around Porto Cervo. I can spend six weeks in a row there without going anywhere. I like Croatia, around the islands, Greece, the Cyclades.  I would take it to the Bahamas, which I haven’t done, and the North Passage, which I also haven’t done.”

But when is this going to happen? Wolff reflects for a moment. “I think in life you must have three motivations; somebody to love, something to do and something to dream of. I don’t want to put a certain time on it; if you talk too much about it also, the bubble might burst and then there’s no dream any more.”

With the Monaco Yacht Show in town last month, there was plenty of temptation on the doorstep and for the shipyards, an opportunity to prove they can design and build the superyacht of Toto Wolff’s dreams.

First published in the October 2024 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.