Kimi Antonelli, first cracks with Toto Wolff? In the Mercedes house they speak clearly
The Sprint Race held in Montreal, the first competitive act of the weekend culminating in the Canadian Grand Prix, experienced perhaps the birth of the real rivalry between George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Winning Saturday’s short race was the Englishman, who was forced to defend himself with a very aggressive maneuver from his teammate’s attack. It was precisely the Bolognese driver who complained at length via radio to the Mercedes pit wall and, perhaps for the first time since his debut, did not see Toto Wolff protecting him without ifs and buts. On the contrary, the team principal appeared rather annoyed with him, both while the engines were still running and in the minutes that followed.
After Russell’s sprain that forced him to give up even second place to Lando Norris, Antonelli protested to his technicians, being told by Wolff himself to concentrate on the action on the track and leave “the complaints over the radio” alone. But the Mercedes team principal also rehashed it later, speaking to ‘Sky Sports’. “That message to Kimi has an explanation. We don’t want Star Wars wars to start in the team, which could also degenerate over time,” he said. “I simply had to handle that situation, which was also due to the emotionality of the moment. He is young, but in his place George would probably have done the same. I appreciated the moment, which allowed us to understand how to handle such situations. But we don’t want incidents among our drivers, or in general risk losing a race. There are internal rules to be respected.”
In post-race interviews with the World Championship organization’s microphones, Antonelli tried to frame the incident more clearly: “It was a tough battle. With George we had practically the same pace: I tried to pass him, we were side by side, but he pushed me out. Then I made a mistake in turn eight and there I definitely compromised my race.” Prickly, for his part, was Russell’s comment: “With Kimi it was a good challenge, it is very important to have finished both on the podium, also because he often saw the grass.” The one who smiled the most, in the end, was Lando Norris, skillful in inserting himself in the internal Mercedes tussle: “Today I could only have taken advantage of a few opportunities, I managed to insert myself in the fight between Russell and Antonelli, it went well.”
The dynamics of the key episode is clear: on lap six, Antonelli had attempted an overtaking move on Russell while both were fighting for first position, finding himself, however, the road closed and being forced off the track. It was a moment that had unnerved him for the rest of the Sprint, so much so that he made that additional mistake in turn eight that opened the door wide for Norris to take second place. The final result saw Russell first, Norris second, and Antonelli third, with Oscar Piastri fourth in the other McLaren and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton fifth and sixth, respectively.
Off the track, meanwhile, the discussion also heated up among the fans. On one side are those who accuse Russell of completely ignoring the Mercedes team spirit, reading his aggressive defense as an inappropriate gesture toward his younger teammate. On the other, however, there is no shortage of those who point the finger at Antonelli, believing him to be too impetuous in the hot stages of the Sprint and perhaps weighed down by the pressure of the championship lead. A pressure that, it should be remembered, Wolff himself had already identified as a variable to be managed with care: in recent weeks, after Antonelli’s third consecutive success in Miami, the team principal had warned that “the moment he does a bad race then people will say: maybe he’s not the superstar we thought,” stressing the need to follow “a trajectory, knowing that there will be ups and downs as is normal for a boy of his age.”
In the overall standings, the Montreal Sprint does not upset the balance of power but brings them significantly closer: Antonelli remains in the lead with 106 points, but Russell climbs to 88, reducing the gap to 18 lengths. A still important gap, but one that tells of an increasingly heated internal rivalry within Mercedes, as indeed former McLaren’s own driver David Coulthard had already anticipated in the past: “The friendship is over, George now knows there is a real threat to the world title.” The Canadian weekend continues in great anticipation for Sunday’s Grand Prix, and Mercedes comes to the appointment with one more certainty: the cold war between its two drivers has officially become hot.
