Earlier this week Mercedes announced Elliott would be stepping down from his CTO role, seven months after swapping positions with technical director James Allison.
Elliott, who initially joined the squad in 2012 as head of aerodynamics, was hailed for his instrumental position in Mercedes’ unprecedented streak of world championships in F1’s turbo hybrid period.
He mentioned the choice was his, and it could enable him to “pause and take inventory, after 23 years of working flat-out on this sport, after which to search out my subsequent problem”.
Mercedes realised from the beginning of pre-season in testing that it had missed the mark with its F1 automotive for the second 12 months operating, which prompted one other mid-season revamp. However group boss Wolff refuted claims that Elliott had paid the value for its efficiency woes.
“No, Mike was my primary worker for a lot of, a few years by way of how he carried out,” Wolff informed Sky Sports activities F1.
“We’re going to miss probably the most intelligent individuals within the trade. It was only a onerous toll on him over these a few years and I discover it very outstanding that any person can say, ‘You understand what, I have to do one thing else’.
“If any person is powerful and say, ‘I am carried out with it in the interim’, that is good.”
Picture by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Toto Wolff, Workforce Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG
He added: “[Car design] isn’t the choice of a single individual. I believe we as a gaggle are attempting to construct the quickest racecar and clearly we have been to date down the route with that idea of a automotive that we thought possibly we received on prime of it.
“We did not. That is why we modified it. And we put numerous plasters on the automotive with a view to be extra aggressive, like we see now, however that hasn’t received any correlation [with Elliot leaving].”
In April, Autosport revealed that Allison and Elliott would be swapping roles, with Allison returning to the hands-on technical director job and Elliott taking the extra overarching CTO position.
The swap fashioned a part of a raft of adjustments the Brackley group made to return to the entrance of the F1 grid after lacking the mark with its Mercedes W14, with Elliott and Allison reportedly reverting to roles that higher suited their skillset.
When requested how Elliott leaving will impression the event of the 2024 automotive, Wolff replied: “It is no single individual’s fault if a automotive does not carry out, it is also not one single individual that makes the automotive sooner.
“Now we have such a strengths within the organisation that you may take one out and everyone else goes to cowl that and the opposite method round, so I do not assume that is going to alter something for subsequent 12 months.”