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When you’re backed by a legacy car maker like Mercedes-Benz, chances are you have access to some of the rarest and most sought-after models in existence.
Though us mere mortals would jump at the chance of using any Mercedes model as our everyday cars, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team principal Toto Wolff’s daily driver is a lesson in opulence and peak automotive performance.
Speaking at a Q&A in the Mercedes-AMG lounge ahead of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix, the 54-year-old F1 team principal acknowledged the comfortability of SUVs – riding around in a GLE in Melbourne. Though he said said he still prefers driving around Monaco – where he currently lives – in the Mercedes-AMG One hypercar.
“I’m 54 now and I get into those SUVs [that are the] most comfortable. But I’m also lucky they gave me an allocation for the Mercedes-AMG One and I like to drive in the Project One,” Wolff told attendees, including Drive.
While cruising around in a $AU4 million hyper car on a normal day would be more than enough to draw a crowd, Wolff recalled the small controversy after breaking a simple road rule after a family outing in Monaco.
“I had a bit of an issue because where I live in Monaco, it’s quite tight and I took it out for a spin. I have an eight-year-old son who’s an avid go kart [racer] and Suzie [his wife] was a race car driver. So, she has him on her lap and someone took a photo and it became a scandal,” Wolff said.
Though driving with a child on your lap in the front passenger seat is a big no-no in most countries in the world including Monaco, Wolff said the low-speed limits in high density areas in the country somewhat reduces the risk.
“People don’t know [that] in Monaco, you can’t go more than 20km/h [in some areas], so even hitting a wall wouldn’t be that bad,” he joked.
For reference, the Mercedes-AMG One plug-in hybrid hypercar is limited to just 275 examples and is the German luxury marque’s first ever road-legal F1 car.
It’s powered by a 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 petrol engine paired with four electric motors, with Mercedes-AMG claiming a maximum power output of 782kW. The hypercar can reach 0 to 100km/h in 2.9 seconds while achieving a top speed of 327km/h,
What’s the point of owning one of the fastest road-going cars in history in a small country like Monaco? Who knows but I’m not in the tax bracket to find out.
While the F1 circus can look glamourous, Wolff said the reality of working in the paddock throughout a season is anything but.
Wolff told attendees that when’s working his normal schedule is generally “Airport, hotel, track, hotel, track, airport”.
Asked if he has some favourite places to visit in Melbourne, Wolff jokingly said “they never allow us to get out”, though the 54-year-old team principal claimed, “There’s a steak place in the hotel that I love”.
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
