{"id":883042,"date":"2026-09-07T08:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/883042\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T08:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:32:15","slug":"toto-wolff-uneasy-as-mercedes-drivers-fought-at-monza-that-could-have-ended-in-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/883042\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff uneasy as Mercedes drivers fought at Monza: \u201cThat could have ended in disaster\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toto Wolff believes the battle for victory between\u00a0Kimi Antonelli<\/a> and George Russell<\/a> at the Italian Grand Prix \u201ccould have ended in disaster\u201d \u2013 and the Mercedes<\/a> Formula 1 squad \u201cwould have looked like idiots\u201d.<\/p>\n

Antonelli started his home race down in 19th, courtesy of a grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allowance, but fought his way up to second place in just 16 laps.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

A 12-lap battle with Russell ensued, with the Silver Arrows trading the race lead several times, until a virtual safety car intervention provided the opportunity of a pitstop for Antonelli, who emerged back on track just 14 seconds behind his team-mate.<\/p>\n

Fresh tyres meant the 20-year-old Italian caught the lead car with six laps remaining, and the decisive battle for victory occurred then \u2013 with a scare on lap 49, as Russell cut Turn 2 while Antonelli slid wide into the gravel trap.<\/p>\n

They still achieved a 1-2, with Antonelli leading Russell by four seconds and Max Verstappen<\/a> by 15s under the chequered flag. However, it definitely wasn\u2019t comfortable for Mercedes team principal Wolff, who considered reaching out to his drivers\u2019 race engineers, Marcus Dudley and Peter \u2018Bono\u2019 Bonnington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re trying to anticipate possible scenarios, and the two of them have been great in understanding and embracing the team component \u2013 which is difficult for a race driver that tries to win a grand prix, especially for Kimi in Monza, especially for George, who needs to keep scoring points in order to stay in the Toto Wolff uneasy as Mercedes drivers fought at Monza: \u201cThat could have ended in disaster\u201d race,\u201d the Austrian pondered. \u201cBut they’ve always been clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, we were thinking, \u2018It’s clean, but it’s a bit close\u2019. And I had a finger on the button to Marcus, to Bono, to Kimi, to George, but I didn’t push it.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last incident was unfortunate. George tried to not cut the corner, and Kimi then obviously on the marbles, going straight, and that could have ended up in a disaster when it comes to the race result. We would have looked like idiots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be talking about that situation as another building block of how we want to race in the future. But I think it was worth to show the racing spirit in the team and have them go at each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was suggested to Russell that the battle may be reminiscent of the Canadian Grand Prix \u2013 another race with drawn-out Mercedes wheel-to-wheel combat for the lead \u2013 which he tentatively agreed with.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Briton expressed regret that Antonelli\u2019s pitstop ended their lengthy duel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have loved to have continued on the same strategy because I felt in a good position in that battle,\u201d he said. \u201cI sort of knew exactly what I needed to do with the energy management to defend, but also when to attack and make those moves, and I put a lot of preparation into this race in that regard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, of course, when the VSC came out, it kind of came out at that perfect point for the drivers to pull the trigger and take the pitstop. And, yeah, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having failed to win for a fifth grand prix in a row, Russell is now 66 points adrift of Antonelli in the drivers\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff believes the battle for victory between\u00a0Kimi Antonelli and George Russell at the Italian Grand Prix \u201ccould…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[12295,64,63,44232,817,813,816,3875,44231,945,85,452316],"class_list":["post-883042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autodromo-nazionale-monza","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-italian-gp","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff-uneasy-as-mercedes-drivers-fought-at-monza-u201cthat-could-have-ended-in-disasteru201d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883042","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=883042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}