Wolff secretly enjoyed the Antonelli-Russell battle: 'The media want Star Wars headlines'
Photo: Race Pictures
20:05, 23 May
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Shanna is a Formula 1 journalist at GPblog, specializing in both F1 and endurance and GT racing. With a Master’s degree in Journalism and experience at international circuits, she provides in-depth, reliable coverage and insights based on her presence at Grands Prix and racing events worldwide.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has had his say on the intense fight between Kimi Antonelli and George Russell at the Canadian GP Sprint. The Austrian had to address the young Italian four times on the radio and rapped his knuckles for the way he complained during the race. Afterwards, Wolff admits it was a very tough battle and they need to look at how to handle it.
There, Wolff hints that things may need to be a bit different from now on, although he doesn’t want to deny either driver the chance to win. He is, however, aware that things could have ended very differently in Canada.
During the race he spoke sternly to Antonelli, telling him "concentrate on the driving and not on the radio moaning." At the end he said: “It’s the fourth time to talk about this; we shall talk about this internally and not on team radio.”
While Wolff makes it clear that he will absolutely have a conversation with both drivers, he admitted to secretly enjoying the battle a little. "So first of all, I enjoy also to watch it, you know, we want to see racing and overtaking and for me these moments are super good because there is so much we can learn from this and say, you know, I take the drivers aside and say, 'How do you see that? How do we want to handle it in the future?"
Wolff already sees the headlines appearing
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Photo: Race Pictures
The Mercedes team boss would also like to see the drivers take the initiative in setting rules to prevent worse incidents in the future. "Obviously, you're so upset about being pushed off or not having left the space but you know all of the media wants to come up now with Star Wars and and that's gonna be the headlines everywhere so having the message once is okay, a second time I can kind of get but if you come a third and a fourth time, that's not good to have that out.
He emphasizes that he understands Antonelli is young and hungry, but that shouldn’t cause him to see red during the race. "I don't want to hold him back at all. I think also that he went for Lando. So when you analyse it, uh, going into turn one with George, he had the nose ahead, but then obviously on the brakes, and we see that it's a max, no, you kind of roll it in a little bit to be ahead, but is that a corner you would expect somebody to leave the door open? Probably not, nobody would have done that."
In that respect, Antonelli still needs a bit of help judging such situations. "I want him to continue to be aggressive because you can't expect to have a lion in the car and a puppy outside, you know that's that character. He will be upset and you need to accommodate that and respect that, so the question is only how do you do this then going forward? What are the rules? If we decide we're racing each other like a third car then both of them know and at least then you maybe have a different approach."
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Mercedes must decide quickly
In the past it has happened that two Mercedes drivers took each other out. Former driver Jacques Villeneuve also reminds Wolff of the crash between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona in 2016. "In Formula One, we are telling young drivers from parts into junior formulas you've got to be selfish, you know, and they are, you have to. And then suddenly you're parachuted on a Formula One team and then there's someone telling you, no, you need to be a team player and you represent Mercedes and you can't do that. You can't take that out of a driver. And I would never want to take it out of a driver. So selfish, yes. Will it be different in the relationship a little bit when they race for a championship? Absolutely. It's to be expected."
"When I came into Formula One, this Nico-Lewis situation was something that was new for me. They were established stars and they probably spoke about it too late. And it's good now to establish this balance and that modus operandi now in race five rather than much later," he states.
He knows the incident will have to be discussed quickly because there is another Grand Prix scheduled in less than 24 hours. It’s possible that both gentlemen will start from the front row as well."That would be a luxury problem, but as you say, I think we have 20 hours to kind of figure out how we want to how we want to approach turn one tomorrow if we have a good position. I don't want to stop that, you know, I like it, but you can see how quickly you lose again."
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Canadian Grand Prix
Overview
Friday 22.05.26
Practice 1
04:30 PM
Sprint Qualification
08:30 PM
Saturday 23.05.26
Sprint Race
04:00 PM
Qualification
08:00 PM
Sunday 24.05.26
Race
08:00 PM
Friday 22.05.26
Practice 1
Fri 04:30 PM
Sprint Qualification
Fri 08:30 PM
Saturday 23.05.26
Sprint Race
Sat 04:00 PM
Qualification
Sat 08:00 PM
Sunday 24.05.26
Race
Sun 08:00 PM
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