Toto Wolff has warned his drivers that he will “take them out” if they cause division within Mercedes in a repeat of the Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg drama from a decade ago. In a hotly-contested 2016 title race, Hamilton and Rosberg came to blows on track on more than one occasion, most notably in Barcelona when they both crashed out as they duelled wheel to wheel.
Their rivalry also had a negative effect on the atmosphere within the team, which team principal Wolff is desperate to avoid a repeat of. Up to now, his current drivers have kept things civil despite teenager Kimi Antonelli upstaging his more experienced team-mate George Russell.
Wolff has made it very clear he will not tolerate any change on that front. “I will not allow it,” the Austrian told RacingNews365. “That is never going to happen to me again, that is never going to happen to the team again. Simple. I am just taking a driver out if he does that.”
Over the course of the first half of the season, the battle between Mercedes team-mates has been largely one-sided. Russell made the perfect start with victory on the first Sunday of the campaign in Melbourne, but has added only one more victory since. Antonelli has six wins under his belt including a run of five in a row which put him in command of the title race.
Russell’s challenge has been hampered significantly by a string of unfortunate incidents and reliability problems, though Wolff said he is convinced the Brit can still turn things around in the second half of the season. He said: “George was in the lead in Montreal, and then he DNFd, so that could have been another win for him.
“Certainly, it would have put him in a better frame of mind for the races to come. To be fair enough to him, we had an engine issue on his car, which took a long time to discover, [it was worth] two-tenths. And then, obviously, the pressure has built up for him because he came in as the clear favourite.
“Kimi had nine races without a point last year, then Kimi is very good this year. And suddenly, the kind of expectations change, and you are a little bit on the back foot. If there is someone on the back foot that can manage that it is George, because he is a hard guy. The best ones, they are able to turn things around. So I think he can, absolutely.”
Given the difficulties he has had, though, Russell admitted the summer break has arrived at a good time for him. He said after finishing seventh in Hungary: “The race was totally ruined. I did my procedure right at the start. The pace was fine, the result was s**t. But the things that I could have controlled, they were just okay. I usually don’t feel like I need a break [but] this year I definitely feel like I need one.”