Toto Wolff has laid out the rules of engagement for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, with the Mercedes Team Principal wary of a repeat of the fateful 2016 collision between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
After a challenging run of races, Russell enjoyed a resurgence in Qualifying as he secured his third pole position of the season, beating third-placed Antonelli by 0.319s to sandwich Ferrari’s Hamilton in P2.
The Mercedes pair previously clashed at the Canadian Grand Prix, which prompted Wolff to review his approach to allowing them to race each other – that was made relevant again this weekend, partly due to painful memories of Hamilton and Rosberg taking one another out of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.
Asked whether he would resort to deploying team orders to avoid a similar situation, Wolff told F1 TV: “I think they’re racing for a championship and Kimi will want to show that he’s the one. George wants a good result to say ‘I’m the one, don’t discount me’.
“Lewis obviously is in such a good frame of mind that he’s going for the win, so I don’t know how this is going to pan out tomorrow. For me, the primary thing is no contact, but they’re starting behind each other. Kimi’s going to have a good slipstream – more grey hair!”
Elaborating on his ideal opening lap, he added: “Get through Turn 1 and 2 and 3! Then comes our famous corner, 4, the right-hander where I’ve already had two cars stranded in the gravel bed in 2016.
“If you think conservatively, you need to think forwards and not start protecting points – it’s like a football team that starts to defend rather than attack. I think [Antonelli’s] going to be on the attack and that’s fine.”
After Hamilton delivered a brilliant last-gasp lap in Qualifying to snatch second place, Wolff now has the added concern of Ferrari taking the fight to Mercedes and potentially ending their streak of winning every Grand Prix so far this season.
The Scuderia introduced further upgrades in Barcelona that Hamilton seemed to maximise, but he will start the race as the team’s sole frontrunner as Charles Leclerc crashed out of Q3 and failed to set a lap time.
Nevertheless, Wolff admitted that they could jeopardise Mercedes’ chances of success as he explained: “Our calculations showed that they’re half a second off on a single lap. Here they rebounded and I guess their upgrade is working – maybe they were running a bit heavier than us in previous sessions.
“We’ve got to fasten our seatbelts because that upgrade was massive. At the moment in cost cap land we can’t afford to do that, so they are proper challengers.”
