“Ross Brawn realised in 2012 that it was not getting any better – he started
to recruit and to add some of the people to the organisation in key areas.”

That name is one that hangs over Wolff. Despite all their success in the
opening five races – the team targeted 28.5 points per race to win the
constructors’ championship, and have so far managed nearly 40 – there is a
feeling that Brawn, a giant of F1 who quit in February, should be up there
at least sharing in some of the champagne.

Wolff, to his credit, agrees. “Ross has a considerable part in the success of
this year. It’s a big shame he’s not here. I’m speaking with Ross regularly,
and we are trying to get him to one of the next races to have a look at the
team.

“He was so important in building the base, and setting in place some of the
structures, and we would like him to be part of the team and see what’s
happening this year. He’s going to come eventually – he’s promised to.”

Brawn always had a headmasterly air. When that team order came over the radio,
you did not disobey. And judging by the way Wolff speaks of Mercedes’ former
team principal, he still defers to him.

“If there is a heated situation on a race weekend, I am trying to imagine what
Ross would have done,” Wolff says. “If needed, I give him a call, but I can
well see us missing Ross’s calmness and experience in the heat of races, or
in the heat of the championship.”

How the team cope without Brawn, as well the departing technical director Bob
Bell, remains a live issue.

Despite looking for his tutelage, however, Wolff and Brawn are vastly
different characters. Brawn, one of the mastermind’s of Ferrari’s supremacy
in the early 2000s, began his career as an engineer, whereas Wolff – a
former amateur racer – arrived in the sport via spells with industrial
investment companies. Indeed, he remains, not to the liking of all in the
paddock, a shareholder in both the Mercedes and Williams teams. His wife,
Susie, is a development driver with Williams.

As his fondness for The Art of Action shows the 42-year-old is also a
man who immerses himself in books and articles on management culture,
passing them onto mechanics, aerodynamicists and even the drivers as food
for thought. Jargon such as “functionality” and “competencies”, usually
found in boardrooms not motorhomes, peppers our conversation. Wolff even
took the most senior members of the team on a seminar on military strategy:
my suggestion that this influenced the team’s endeavour to have Red
Bull
banned for three races is met with a chuckle.

That is Wolff’s background and his nature. After all, it is hard to envisage
Brawn, the master of race strategy, feeling the need to employ a sports
psychologist like Dr Ceri Evans.

“I remember the first time when we went off site for two days,” Wolff says.
“We took very important people who design the car under heavy time
constraints into a workshop. We defined our targets, and what was needed to
achieve those targets.

“We spent 36 hours with each other. We took the risk of losing two days off
site and not looking after the car, and instead we looked after the
organisation. There is a lot we do around that.”

Is this how they have prevented Hamilton and Nico Rosberg waging open war
against each other? “Yes, the drivers gave us feedback,” Wolff says. “But
there are lots of things we share with the drivers.”

Still, amid a season of transformations for Mercedes – this time last year
they were qualifying well, but falling back miserably in the races – one of
the greatest has been in the demeanour of their star driver.

Hamilton seems more comfortable within himself, and disciplined: his notorious
pet dogs, once a regular sight in the paddock, remained in his hotel in
Spain and did not travel to the first four races.

Does this come from Wolff, the Mercedes chairman and former world champion
Niki Lauda, or the man himself?

“All of us have a certain influence,” Wolff says. “Lewis respects Niki in a
great way, and Niki mentors Lewis because he’s a three-time world champion
and has lots of experience in life. It happens in a very gentle way through
discussions.

“I think that what we are trying to provide is to protect him from the
nastiness of the environment. They are very young, and they have to learn by
doing. I think that Lewis for himself realised what was more important, and
what was less important.”

And with an analogy which could have come straight from the mouth of Ron
Dennis, Wolff adds: “Our focus is to win the world championship, so get rid
of all the noises.

“It’s as if you’re walking to your apartment. You put all the furniture out
onto your street but you only take the furniture back in the house you need
to perform well. And this is what he [Hamilton] has done. It is a gradual
thing but it has started at the beginning of the season.”

Whatever has taken place behind closed doors, the results speak for
themselves. Hamilton has led four consecutive one-two finishes, finally
assuming control of the championship lead. As their battles in Bahrain and
Spain proved, Rosberg is pushing the Briton to new heights and, just five
races into 2014, both championships are very much theirs to lose.

“We are not the dominant team,” Wolff insists. “We cannot afford to lose one
millimetre of performance. I guess that we are looking strong at the moment
and you can’t push aside that we are the favourites for the world
championship, at this stage.”

Like the Prussians, Mercedes should have their day in Paris: at the FIA’s
annual prize-giving ceremony once the season has concluded.