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<\/p>\nMercedes technical director James Allison has denied his team is favouring title leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli over stalwart George Russell in this year\u2019s championship battle.<\/p>\n
Russell was widely tipped as the title favourite this season, his eighth in Formula 1, over sophomore teammate Antonelli, whom he handily beat last year.<\/p>\n
Antonelli, however, has roared from the blocks. After finishing second to Russell in Melbourne, the Italian won five grands prix in a row to sprint to a 68-point advantage over his teammate until his first DNF of the season in Canada shrunk that gap to a still chunky 50 points.<\/p>\n
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Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n Unreliability and misfortune have played a role in opening Russell\u2019s deficit enough for Lewis Hamilton to move into second place, but Antonelli has also clearly been the quicker Mercedes driver, leading the sister car 4-3 in qualifying this season and demonstrating at least equal race at every grand prix.<\/p>\n Russell has put the disparity between the two down to him being uncomfortable with the 2026 Mercedes, which he says is better suited to Antonelli\u2019s driving style.<\/p>\n Though some interpreted those comments a suggestion Mercedes was biased towards its younger star, technical chief Allison has denied there\u2019s any internal favouritism at play.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are very invested in the people that they support, and they want their driver to prosper above all others,\u201d he told the Mercedes Silver Arrows Radio Show podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you ever wanted to understand where [favouritism] sits on our psyche, you\u2019d need to come and work in a team, because if you were lucky enough to come and work in a team, you would instantly \u2014 instantly \u2014 be imbued with the culture of that team and you would understand how utterly alien that thought is to anyone in the team.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we hear it, it\u2019s like we\u2019re hearing another language.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Allison conceded he was unlikely to convince anyone who strongly believed the conspiracy, he underlined that the team\u2019s priority was winning the constructors championship, for which it needed two competitive \u2014 and two motivated \u2014 drivers rather than one star and one subjugated number two.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is in all of our interests that both our drivers prosper,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are ambivalent about which one is better than the other. We want a one-two in every race, and we don\u2019t care the order.<\/p>\n \u201cOur main championship, weirdly, is not the drivers championship; it\u2019s the constructors championship.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re lucky enough to win a bonus, we win it on the basis of the constructors \u2018Utterly alien\u2019: Passionate reply over title conspiracy ; Supercars star set for F1 run \u2014 Pit Talk position, not the drivers [title result] \u2014 we don\u2019t get anything for that.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything we care about is constructors-oriented, and favouritism makes zero sense to us in that respect. We just want maximum points from both the drivers at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n PIT TALK PODCAST: Lewis Hamilton scores his first win for Ferrari in a strategic showdown in Spain \u2014 but is the surging seven-time champion in the title fight? And why don\u2019t we know the result of the Monaco podium yet more than a week after the race? | Listen to Pit Talk here ><\/a><\/p>\n He admitted, though, that Mercedes would consider backing one of its drivers if threatened by another team.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only point where we would start to have an opinion is if one driver is mathematically incapable now of winning a championship and the other driver is in a fight with a third-party driver,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point the team has a right to an opinion, but up until that point we just want both our players to be right up there every single race.\u201d<\/p>\n