George Russell and Kimi Antonelli delivered their first proper wheel-to-wheel battles over the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix weekend, starting with a fraught sprint race battle which left Antonelli frustrated by Russell’s stout defending and prompted talks to clarify the team’s rules of engagement.
Their battle resumed on Sunday in the grand prix until Russell disappeared on lap 30 with engine trouble. But before that point Mercedes had already cautioned its drivers to calm things down after they traded a glancing blow on lap 24 in the final chicane, and Antonelli escaped through the runoff area.
The intra-team racing left Mercedes and Toto Wolff in two minds. On the one hand, the team trusts its drivers and is keen to let them race, especially at this early stage of the 2026 title battle. But, on the other hand, it also wants to avoid a repeat of the bitter rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2014-16 and it is keen to get ahead of any angst before things spiral out of control.
That’s why Wolff conceded that there will be times when Mercedes may be forced to “turn it down a notch”, as some of the battles between Russell and Antonelli were already a bit too close for comfort.
“It’s always easier at the end now to say: ‘Well, that was great for the team and great for the sport and didn’t we all enjoy watching the battling,” Wolff mused. “And that is true to a degree, but there is another side which we need to look at, that it was close a few times. Kimi tucking back in and locking the tyres could have ended in a double DNF and not because of over-aggressive driving with each other, simply by a mistake. And the same through the last chicane situation.
“It’s important to analyse the race and discuss with the drivers whether they felt it was a bit close and if that is the case, how can we avoid these situations where we deem it a little bit too close. We had the margin today and then it’s easy to accept that they are fighting to a certain degree, but obviously that’s not always going to be the case.
George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
“So, as much as we look very sportsmanlike today by allowing it, there could be a situation where we would maybe turn it down a notch.”
Russell also drew parallels between his fights with Antonelli and the Hamilton-Rosberg battle, but in a positive sense because he says he hasn’t seen that kind of fighting between team-mates since then.
“Yeah, I mean, I loved it,” Russell said. “I thought it was great. I’ve not had a battle like this in years. I haven’t seen a battle like this probably since Lewis and Nico in Bahrain 2014. And these new cars allow you to do that.”
Russell felt he and Antonelli had their battling under control after discussing the sprint race events within the team. “We know how we need to race,” the Briton added. “I think we both had it under control and it was great.”
Antonelli admitted the battle was “on the edge” at times but equally saw no bones in Russell’s robust defence in the grand prix.
“It was a tough fight. I think a couple of times was maybe a little bit on the edge, but we were going at each other,” he added, after taking a 43-point lead on Russell in the championship with his fourth consecutive grand prix win.
“We were both pushing and we both wanted to win. And it was, I think, for everyone watching, pretty entertaining. It was a lot of fun because we were both pushing on the limit and going for it.”
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