Wolff plays down Mercedes rivalry as a ‘good learning experience’

MONTREAL: Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff recalled his role in managing previous intra-team title battles after calming the strife between championship leading Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli and George Russell ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.

The pair had clashed during Saturday’s sprint race, won by pre-season title favourite Russell, in an incident that prompted an angry Antonelli to claim he had been “pushed off” and that his team-mate should be penalised.

However, after cool-down talks to establish the rules of racing engagement, Wolff was confident his Silver Arrows drivers would avoid crashing into each other during Sunday’s showdown at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

“We’ve obviously been through all this before, all these motions, with Nico (Rosberg) and Lewis (Hamilton), back in 2015 and ‘2016,” said Wolff.

“But this was good racing, like sport should be with an inter-team battle, and for us it’s a good learning experience.

“And it was very easy, too, because we sat them down and said ‘how do we want to race? Are we racing the other car like any third car, which I’m fine with, and then obviously, you don’t leave any space there.

“Or do you want to leave the space – which I would not expect, because fundamentally, you are racing for winning and winning the championship.

“Or are we playing this super-smooth sailing and you only overtake each other on the straight under braking?

“So, we agreed that we trust them and that they know how to push, but in any case, no one is expecting the other one to leave space, because it’s too important,” he added.

Wolff’s guidelines, in effect, left the two early-season title protagonists with the freedom to race hard and aggressively, but without making contact – a scenario that promises a tense and thrilling start to Sunday’s race.

‘Hard done by’

Russell starts from his third consecutive Canada pole position, chasing his second successive win in Montreal to trim Antonelli’s 18-point lead in the title race – while the precocious 19-year-old Italian is seeking a fourth straight win to pull further clear.

Russell understood the emotional reaction from Antonelli when he defended his position on lap six and forced him to take evasive action by running off the track at Turn One.

“If I was in his position and he was in my position, I probably would have reacted the same way,” he admitted.

“If something doesn’t pay off in the moment, you feel hard done by and blame the other guy. It’s just natural.

“We’re all racers. We are all fighters and we wear our hearts on our sleeves.

“It’s a tough position where everything we think, or feel, is broadcast to the world. We don’t regret it, but we may wish we said something differently,” he said.

A more subdued Antonelli said: “We had a discussion and clarified things and now it’s all good. We reviewed it, had a chat with Toto and that’s it”.

While the Mercedes pair settled their differences, for now, four-time champion Max Verstappen headed into the race after confirming his threat to quit this year if F1 does not follow through on changing the engine regulations next season.

“If it stays like this, for me, it is going to be a long year next year, which I don’t want and it is mentally not doable. It’s really not. There’s a lot of other fun things to do out there,” he said.

In common with many other drivers, the Red Bull driver wants to switch from a 50-50 split between engine power and battery power to a 60-40 split.

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