Lewis Hamilton put the team championship first near end of 2021 season and it shows how Toto Wolff manages F1's biggest 'headache'

• Toto Wolff faces the challenge of managing teammates who are also championship rivals on the track.
• Rival Red Bull boss Christian Horner said the situation will be a "headache" for Wolff.

As the team principal for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, Toto Wolff knows he is blessed with a good problem, even if his biggest rival says it is going to cause a "headache."

Mercedes has won eight straight F1 team championships, thanks, in large part, to Lewis Hamilton's seven drivers' championships but also because the team consistently has a world-class second driver as well.

Valtteri Bottas, 32, has served as Hamilton's sidekick for the past five years, finishing second or third in the drivers' standings four times. However, Bottas never finished a season ahead of Hamilton and was often tasked with assisting his teammate's pursuit of championship glory.

Mercedes parted ways with Bottas last year, one of the many storylines that is sure to dominate the new season of the hit Netflix docuseries, Formula One: Drive to Survive, which debuted Friday. To replace him, the team tapped 24-year-old George Russell, a star on the rise with his own championship aspirations.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner warned that the new dynamics, which will officially begin to play out at F1's opening race on March 20, could become a problem for Wolff, Hamilton, and the Mercedes team.

"[Hamilton is] going to have more competition internally because he's got a hungry, competitive young teammate who is going to be snapping at his ankles," Horner said to the media during F1 testing. "Life is not going to be getting easier for him, that's for sure. George is going to be a big factor this year. He has been blisteringly quick in all the junior categories. He's one of the standout talents, and dealing with his drivers will give Toto a headache this year."

While Horner might have been intentionally needling his rival, Wolff doesn't seem too worried, knowing he can build on the experience of dealing with that type of "headache" in the past.

"I've learned on the job with the most difficult relationship, between Nico Rosberg and Lewis, and then an easier one between Valtteri and Lewis," Wolff told Insider when asked how he keeps the tension from becoming a problem. "[This is a] very different dynamic. And again, I'm going to learn on the job. But with more experience than I had in the past, going into this open-eyed that it may be something where I need to put the framework in place and make sure that the dynamic doesn't escalate in a way that it would harm the team."

Hamilton's unselfishness makes Wolff's job easier

Wolff also has experience working with Russell, as the Brit signed as part of Mercedes' young driver program in 2017.

Still, the key to the dynamic is Hamilton, who, Wolff says, has bought into the team concept despite all his individual success.

"I'm very conscious about the conflict of interest between the two of them, between the team and the driver," Wolff said. "But with Lewis, he has so bought into the notion of team spirit."

The best example of this came at the end of the 2021 season, he said. After Hamilton finished behind Red Bull rival Max Verstappen in three consecutive races, Hamilton faced an uphill climb for the drivers' championship. However, Wolff noted that Hamilton only became more focused on making sure the team won their eighth straight constructors' trophy.

"The drivers' championship is almost gone three or four races before the end," Wolff told Insider. "And [Hamilton] came to me and said, 'Let's at least make sure that we beat these guys for the team championship.' And that's a driver saying that, considering that he just lost the driver championship."

Wolff has made it clear on many occasions that Mercedes does not have a "No. 1" or a "No. 2" driver and that both are given the same car and the same opportunities. However, Wolff also acknowledges that at some point, success is more difficult if the individual drivers don't believe in the team concept.

"First of all, we need to provide a car that they're actually capable of winning races and championships," Wolff said. "If that is the case, we need to make sure that it's for the benefit of the drivers, their own benefit and the team. And that would mean having the two of them buy in into what we then need to be the necessary strategy."

The 2022 F1 season officially opens Friday, March 18 with practice sessions for the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, which will be held two days later.