On the Road With Toto Wolff, Who Likes to Spend a 14-Hour Flight in Silence, Just Thinking

Photographs: Getty Images; Collage: Gabe Conte

Few people on earth travel as often as professional athletes (and the people who work with them). With On the Road, the GQ Sports Travel Questionnaire, they’re weighing in on everything from room service to flying comfortably to their favorite chain restaurants.

In a quiet hotel suite in midtown Manhattan, Toto Wolff is gazing out at the expansive city skyline.

“New York is my favorite place,” he says in his distinctive Austrian accent. In recent years, the 52-year-old team principal of the Mercedes F1 team has become something of a celebrity, known to legions of Formula 1 fans for his stone-cold demeanor and his terse radio messages.

In reality, though, he’s a surprisingly warm, funny guy, and likes to wax poetic about his favorite city in the world.

“You know those places where you come and you connect—your soul connects?” he asks, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “The first time I was in New York was 30 years ago, and I had that feeling. It’s the only city I could imagine living in other than in Europe.”

On this visit, though, Wolff won’t be spending much time in the Big Apple. It’s just a quick pit stop on his way to Florida for this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, Formula 1’s first U.S. race of the season.

Moments earlier, Wolff and star driver, Lewis Hamilton, had been at the hotel’s rooftop, surrounded by hordes of influencers and VIPs as they pulled a lever to project onto the Empire State Building a Mercedes-resembling race car emoji, part of a partnership with WhatsApp designed to highlight the app's stateside growth.

Before shipping off to Miami and boarding yet another flight, Wolff sat down with GQ to talk about his top travel tips, his worst plane experiences, and what he looks for in a good hotel.

In Formula 1, you have 24 races scattered all across the globe—so travel is a huge part of your life. Do you keep track of how many flights and miles you log each year?

On average, it’s about 500 hours in an airplane all year. You get used to it, and when you’ve done it for so many years, jet lag is not an issue anymore. I know how to adapt quickly, how to function for those three days when you’re away for the races. And flying is a period of quietness for me. I’m not watching any movies or listening to music. It’s just… the possibility of staring out the window or at the ceiling, trying to think about stuff.

Wow—so you spend entire flights just lost in thought, in silence, staring out the window?

I can do 14 hours straight just staring at the ceiling with a notepad, where I can write stuff down as I think. That’s why I love it.

I sometimes sleep on planes, but never long enough. I doubt anyone sleeps well on a plane.

You mentioned that you’ve gotten really good at handling jet lag. Was there ever a race weekend, though, where you just couldn’t shake it?

There is one destination—I struggle in Japan, for whatever reason. I love Tokyo, and the Suzuka race is spectacular, but the eight hours is something that’s really difficult to cope with. I can go 10 or 11 hours to Australia without suffering from jet lag at all, and obviously going west causes no jet lag.

For me, there are some tips I have to deal with it. First of all, it depends on how long you’re staying. If it’s just a few days, then simply accepting that you won’t sleep very well is one way of dealing with it. You can use melatonin, which is good, and sometimes when we need to function, we also take a sleeping pill—not to the point where it paralyzes you for the next day and turns you into a zombie! But a little something to help fall asleep.

We’ve been working with NASA about the sleep patterns for astronauts. If you stay for longer periods, the very moment you board the plane, you must adjust to the time zone of your arrival. That might mean wearing sunglasses and shades when it’s night, or exposing yourself to bright light. I have a little screen with blue LED lights on my desk—in China, for example, that was on my desk all day to keep me awake.

A lot of U.S. sports teams will say “Happy flight!” after a big road win as they head back home. Winning eight championships in a row at Mercedes, you had nothing but happy flights for a long time. Is travel really that much better when you’re winning?

I didn’t know they had this notion of “happy flight.” We’ve analyzed it profoundly… and, yes, there were many happy flights where you were buzzing getting onto a plane. You lie back for a sleep, if it’s far away, and you just fall asleep with a smile on your face.

But the truth is, when I’ve woken up the next day, I was already thinking… are we prepared enough for the next race? The pleasure of having won lasts only 12 hours. The pain of losing, however, goes all the way until Thursday before the next race.

What’s your worst flight experience?

I actually enjoy flying a lot, even in turbulence. But 20 years ago I had an experience where I was on a charter flight on a small, private plane, with a pilot who happened to be, for his main job, an animal doctor—how do you call it, a veterinarian? And we flew straight into a storm. The hail actually damaged the plane, and we just barely made the landing. That was probably the most unpleasant experience.

What’s your favorite destination on the Formula 1 calendar?

Well, I must admit, we may not race in New York—although Lewis is driving down Fifth Avenue—but being in the United States around the three Grands Prix here allows me to spend time in NYC and in Los Angeles, where two of my children study. My favorite part of the season is October/November because I can spend a lot of time in the States.

You’ve become a pretty big celebrity in your own right after Drive to Survive. What’s your craziest fan interaction?

What’s different is that, contrary to sports people who grow up with exposure, with me it happened in my late 30s, becoming a character and personality. I look at it all with a certain amusement, as a phenomenon—because you have TV exposure and you’re part of this Formula 1 circus, you’re just interesting to people.

But I take it all with a pinch of salt. There’s no benefit in it aside from, sometimes, a better table in a restaurant. So don’t fall in love with your own persona.

You also get to hobnob with a lot of celebrities who hang around Mercedes. Have you ever been starstruck on the road?

I’m really not into the, let’s say… sheer fact of meeting a “celebrity.” That’s not for me. I don’t do red carpets, and small talk is the worst for me—I try to avoid that. I really admire people for the things they’ve achieved, particularly in my part of the world, around what I do in business or in sports. There were a few encounters that were special to me that I remember, brief exchanges that were interesting. Tom Brady was definitely one of them.

What are the travel essentials you always pack with you on every trip?

With me, it’s simple. I have a great team of assistants, and when I arrive in a hotel, everything is there for me: four white shirts, four trousers, four socks, two pairs of shoes, and a set of gym gear. It’s all meticulously planned.

And when it comes to myself, I try to really keep it simple. The same shoes in different colors, blue and beige chinos, blue and beige jacket, white and blue shirt—and this is what I put into the luggage. It’s not very complicated.

What makes a perfect hotel room for Toto Wolff?

Well, the most important thing is cleanliness. I’ve stayed many times in three-star hotels, but they’re clean or authentic. That’s all I need, and I really feel well then. Sometimes we go-kart with my son in Italy, and there’s no infrastructure where we stay. It’s just a simple hotel, no gym, no spa, no bar. Just keep it simple, basic, and clean—that’s what it needs.

And if a hotel does have a gym—all I care about is that it has dumbbells.

Your wife, Susie, is also jet-setting constantly as the head of F1 Academy, the all-women racing series. Some of your kids, meanwhile, are here in the States. How do you keep in touch with all of them on the road?

WhatsApp is our only way, at least in our group of friends and family. I do email sometimes, but that’s when it’s about work or technically very specific things.

We have lots of group chats, especially when Susie and I are both gone—like right now, for example. Our seven-year-old is with the grandparents in Scotland, and we get the full updates on the hikes and the cycling. I’ve got lots of business and personal group chats going at the same time.

Is there an F1 team principals group chat?

There actually was one many years ago—but that got deleted pretty quickly. Didn’t last too long!

Originally Appeared on GQ