Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has issued a warning to his F1 drivers, insisting he will remove one of them should a fierce rivalry emerge.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Brackley-based squad has enjoyed a positive opening half to the 2026 campaign under a fresh set of technical regulations, taking eight grand prix wins from 11 events.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It has been a more successful campaign thus far for Kimi Antonelli, who currently holds a healthy lead in the drivers’ championship with six victories to his name.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
George Russell entered the campaign as the favourite for the title given his experience over Antonelli, but the Briton has struggled alongside the second-year driver and currently sits 59 points adrift in the standings.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
While no public rivalry between the pair has been formed, intra-team tension is something Mercedes has experienced before when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg battled for the title from 2014 to 2016.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The friction was well-documented and various on-track incidents between the duo only augmented the unease within the team.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But when asked if he could see a repeat of the Hamilton vs Rosberg years with its current line-up, Wolff exclusively told RacingNews365: \u201cI will not allow it. That’s never going to happen to me again.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s never going to happen to the team again. Simple. I’m just taking a driver out if he does that.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Article continues below.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tWolff backs Russell to recover from challenging run<\/p>\n
Russell’s F1 campaign began in strong fashion with a victory at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix before Antonelli commenced a strong run with five victories on the bounce.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
While Russell has often been out-paced, he has endured his share of poor luck at recent rounds, missing out on valuable points.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
This stretch included a race-ending power unit problem in Canada, a non-score in Monaco due to a drive-through penalty and being taken out by a rival on the opening lap in Belgium.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Despite the challenging run, Wolff has backed his driver to dig himself out of the adverse period.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge was in the lead in Montreal, and then he DNF’d,\u201d Wolff added.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that could have been another win for him, and certainly it would have put him in a better frame of mind for the races to come.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cTo 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.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, obviously, the pressure has built up for him because he’s come in as the clear favourite.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cKimi had nine races without a point last year, then Kimi is very good this year. And suddenly, the kind of expectations change, and you’re a little bit on the back foot.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is someone on the back foot that can manage that, it’s George, because he’s a hard guy.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best ones, they are able to turn things around. So I think he can, absolutely.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has issued a warning to his F1 drivers, insisting he will remove one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-830860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}