沃尔夫坦率谈论发现F1人才及天才车手为何会消失
梅赛德斯车队老板托托·沃尔夫在采访中坦率地谈论了如何发现F1人才，以及为什么天才车手会逐渐消失。
Toto Wolff坦率地谈论了发现一级方程式赛车人才以及为什么天才少年会失败
Toto Wolff坦率地谈论了发现一级方程式赛车人才，为什么有问题的卡丁车少年会失败，以及刘易斯·汉密尔顿的第六感
对于梅赛德斯车队的粉丝来说，这里是关于银箭的最新消息，包括一级方程式新闻、车手更新、赛车发展和从布拉克利和布里克斯沃斯进行的比赛分析。
当你经营一支价值十亿美元的公式一车队时，你的收件箱可能充满了卡丁车父亲们发誓他们的孩子是下一个埃尔顿·塞纳的邮件。区分世代天才和大量资助的富家子弟是一项残酷的业务，而梅赛德斯老板Toto Wolff的侦察方法目前正在由他的二年级天才安德烈亚·基米·安东内利得到完全的证明。
在仅仅第二个赛季就进入大联盟的安东内利，在美国大奖赛上即将锁定2026年世界冠军。
那么，一个车队经理究竟是如何判断谁有成为世界冠军的潜力的呢？沃尔夫最近接受了Cheeky Pint播客的采访，并完全揭开了他的选才过程，途中还抛出了一些绝对的真实炸弹。
第一圈的眼球测试和有毒的天才问题
当播客主持人约翰·科利森直接问沃尔夫：“你究竟是如何发现一个基米（Kimi）的？”时，梅赛德斯的主帅解释说，最初的眼球测试出奇地简单。你不需要大量的数据表来发现原始的车辆操控。
“你可以看到当有人在卡丁车上感到舒适时，你知道，在雨中以每小时100公里的速度行驶，那个孩子完成他的第一圈并穿过弯道，你知道，侧滑，你知道，OK，这就是擅长这项运动的要素，”沃尔夫解释道。
安德烈亚·基米·安东内利，梅赛德斯，托托·沃尔夫，梅赛德斯
但在湿滑的赛道上以愚蠢的速度飞驰几乎只是战斗的一半。一级方程式是一项高度政治化、由赞助商驱动的团队运动。如果一个年轻的车手把他们的机械师当作垃圾对待，或者无法为一个大型的企业赞助商连成一句话，那么他们的职业生涯实际上在到达之前就已经结束了。
沃尔夫在解释为什么许多备受炒作的青训车队车手在接触到三级方程式座椅之前就完全消失在雷达之下时，并没有保留任何话。
"在计时器下，你需要有技术能力以正确设置你的赛车，与工程师互动，具备一定的社交能力以确保你有赞助商，并善待他们，"沃尔夫表示。"你知道，有些非常有才华的孩子却一事无成，因为他们只是单纯的人品不好或者不够聪明。"
“如果一个车手在卡丁车比赛中幸存下来，学会了如何与赞助商交流，并且不是个糟糕的人，他们仍然需要具备一种无法教授的身体特质才能成为世界冠军。沃尔夫称之为与机械的遗传联系，他用他长期的车手刘易斯·汉密尔顿完美地说明了这种第六感实际上有多么狂野。"
“一个例子是我的一个老朋友和车手刘易斯·汉密尔顿……刘易斯曾经在一次谈论赛车时说，‘赛车从前轴到我的位置都存在转向不足，’”沃尔夫回忆道。
“刘易斯·汉密尔顿，法拉利，托托·沃尔夫，梅赛德斯”
梅赛德斯工程部门的反馈完全让他们不知所措。
“嗯，那是车中间的部分；怎么会有转向不足呢？工程师们真的无法理解他的意思，但那就是他身体告诉他的。”沃尔夫笑着说道。 “如果一个车手能够拥有那种基本的能力底层，那么他就变得不可战胜，但这却是遗传。”
所以，如果你想进入F1，你只需要一个怪物的基因组成，外交官的风度，以及在暴雨中侧滑卡丁车的勇气。这很简单，对吧？
英文原文
Toto Wolff gets brutally honest about spotting F1 talent and why prodigies wash out
Toto Wolff gets brutally honest about spotting F1 talent, why toxic karting kids fail, and Lewis Hamilton's sixth sense
For Mercedes fans. All the latest from the Silver Arrows, with F1 news, driver updates, car development and race analysis from Brackley and Brixworth.
When you run a billion-dollar Formula 1 team, your inbox is probably flooded with emails from karting dads swearing their kid is the next Ayrton Senna. Separating the generational talents from the heavily funded rich kids is a ruthless business, and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff's scouting methods are currently being totally vindicated by his sophomore sensation, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
In just his second season in the big leagues, Antonelli is on the verge of clinching the 2026 World Championship at the United States Grand Prix.
So, how does a team principal actually figure out who has the sauce to become a World Champion? Wolff recently sat down for the Cheeky Pint podcast and completely pulled back the curtain on his scouting process, dropping some absolutely brutal truth bombs along the way.
The lap one eye test and the toxic prodigy problem
When podcast host John Collison asked Wolff point-blank, "How do you actually spot a Kimi?" the Mercedes boss explained that the initial eye test is surprisingly straightforward. You don't need a massive spreadsheet of telemetry data to spot raw car control.
"You can see when someone is comfortable in the kart, you know, going at 100 kilometre an hour in the rain, and that kid does his first lap and comes across the corner, you know, sideways, you know, OK, there are the ingredients for being good at it," Wolff explained.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes
But being stupidly fast on a wet track is barely half the battle. F1 is a highly political, sponsor-driven team sport. If a young driver treats their mechanics like garbage or cannot string a sentence together for a massive corporate backer, their career is effectively dead on arrival.
Wolff didn't hold back when explaining why so many hyped-up junior drivers completely vanish from the radar before ever sniffing a Formula 3 seat.
"Underneath the stopwatch, there needs to be technical ability to set your car up in the right way, interact with the engineers, have some kind of social competence of making sure you have sponsors, treat them well," Wolff stated. "You know, there have been extremely talented kids that never went anywhere because they were just simply bad people or not intelligent enough."
If a driver survives the karting gauntlet, learns how to talk to sponsors, and isn't a terrible human being, they still have to possess an unteachable physical trait to become a World Champion. Wolff calls it a genetic connection to the machinery, and he used his longtime driver Lewis Hamilton to perfectly illustrate how wild this sixth sense actually is.
"One example is an old friend and driver of mine, Lewis Hamilton... Lewis once said something when talking about the car, 'The car understeers from the front axle to where I sit,'" Wolff recalled.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Toto Wolff, Mercedes
The feedback completely broke the brains of the Mercedes engineering department.
"Well, that's the middle of the car; how can that understeer? And the engineers couldn't really identify what he meant, but that is what his body told him," Wolff laughed. "If a driver is able to have that fundamental underlying layer of ability, then that becomes unbeatable, but that is genetics."
So, if you want to make it to F1, you just need the genetic makeup of a mutant, the social grace of a diplomat, and the guts to chuck a kart sideways in a downpour. Easy enough, right?
Motorsport.com ·
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