Toto Wolff confirms Mercedes team orders plan for Russell vs Antonelli | F1 | Sport

Toto Wolff is delighted with the “luxury problem” he has after George Russell and Kimi Antonelli fought a fraught and lengthy duel for victory in Montreal – before the Brit’s engine failure. Though he admitted Mercedes will have to step in if and when his drivers’ on-track fighting becomes too risky.

Russell and Antonelli provided brilliant entertainment as they spent the first half of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix pushing each other hard for the lead. They swapped positions several times but their fun fight sadly ended when Russell pulled over from the lead on lap 30, Mercedes confirming a battery-related engine failure.

Antonelli was left to cruise to the chequered flag and open a commanding 43-point championship lead over his team-mate, thought with 17 rounds still remaining in a long season. “It was bittersweet – you’re so happy for one deserving driver and you’re gutted for the other one,” Wolff said. “In any case, Kimi did a splendid job and deserved the win. George, a shame.”

Shortly before Russell’s battery failure, Mercedes had been preparing to get involved as their drivers’ delicious duel threatened to turn sour. They banged wheels once and Antonelli was told on the radio the team would intervene if they couldn’t “tidy up” their fight for the lead. Russell’s DNF removed any need for action and Wolff explained why he had hesitated to step in.

He said: “We half-enjoyed watching them, how they fought it out, and we wish we would have had a one and a two. Every time when we thought about saying we’ve had enough, because we were losing time to [Max] Verstappen behind us, the next two laps were fast again.

“As long as we maintained that gap it was okay to watch it but, obviously, it can go wrong – not even because one wants to hit the other one, but we saw Kimi locking up the wheel and that can take two cars out. You see how close they were. They were giving each other room, which is great.

“It’s a luxury problem – I hope we go like this for much longer in the season. But we can’t discount the others and, if it was closer behind us, if we were under threat to lose position, we would definitely have jumped in to say, ‘Let’s not lose so much time with each other’.”

Antonelli is the first driver in history to take his first four Grand Prix wins consecutively and Wolff is sure there is much more to come from the teenager. But he’s similarly confident that Russell will bounce back and stop the rot.

The Austrian said: “Kimi has won four races in a row, he’s got a 43 points lead in the championship. You’ve got to be confident. Nevertheless, don’t think this is going to run away with him. He’s very settled with what he does and the environment in the team is good around him.

“It’s a 43-point gap, but there’s still 17 more races to go and so many points to score. This is going to go all the way to the end, hopefully with both of our cars in the mix and no other cars in there. George has got to chip away and George will rebound, I’ve got no doubt about that.”