What a show, but…
The internal challenge within the Mercedes team between Kimi Antonelli and George Russell that took place in Montreal both in the Sprint and the GP recalled the duels between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg from 2014-2016. However, Toto Wolff has learned the lesson from 10 years ago and wants to avoid turning a season that promises to be triumphant for his team into a perpetual fratricidal clash with accidents, accusations, and controversies. In Canada, the greatest tension was experienced during the short Saturday race, while on Sunday – until Russell’s unfortunate retirement – the situation appeared more under control. Wolff and the Mercedes pit wall neither in the Sprint nor in the GP ever intervened to give team orders but limited themselves to calling the drivers – especially Antonelli – to order due to some unwelcome team radio messages.
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At the end of the Canadian weekend, however, it was the Brackley team principal himself who, speaking with journalists, anticipated that in the future this total freedom of action could be reviewed: “It’s always easy to say ‘well, it was great for the team and for the sport and we all enjoyed watching the battle.’ To some extent that’s true, but there’s another aspect we have to consider: on several occasions the situation was critical. The fact that Kimi moved inside and locked up the tires could have led to a double retirement, not because of overly aggressive driving but simply due to a mistake and the same happened at the last chicane with a particular situation. So it’s important to analyze the risk – Wolff observed – and then discuss with the drivers if they made a mistake, if the situation was a bit too critical. And in that case, how can we avoid these very difficult situations?“.
Watch out for team radios
Wolff didn’t say it explicitly, but the reference is clearly to the use of team orders in the future to force his drivers to maintain position. “There’s another aspect to consider – the Austrian manager added – in this race we had a pace advantage, because even when the drivers were close behind each other we were half a second faster than everyone else. But there could very well have been a moment when it wasn’t like that, when they were battling, where we lost a second compared to everyone else. So here we had the advantage, we had the margin, and it’s easy to accept that they battle up to a point, but obviously it won’t always be like that. Here we behaved very sportingly, allowing that to happen, but there could be another situation where maybe we could slow down a bit“.
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Certainly, what Wolff did not appreciate were the team radios in which Antonelli asked for a penalty for his garage mate: “Listening to some radio communications, I think there is room for improvement – Wolff said clearly – but it’s right that [the drivers] show emotion. However, they need to focus on driving, that’s fundamental. I believe they behaved like drivers racing for the championship, so I see nothing wrong with that. The request for a penalty? That’s something we evaluate internally“, he concluded. And Kimi might get a reprimand…
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