The Canadian GP weekend saw some sensational battling on track between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in both the Saturday sprint and Sunday’s main event. The wheel-to-wheel action came close to going a little too far for an intra-team contest, but it just about stayed within the limits of what is acceptable, despite a few trips across the grass as they fought for position.
In the end the action came to a halt in the Grand Prix only when Russell stopped with a power unit issue, the erstwhile leader showing his frustration by throwing his headrest out of the car – an understandable bit of petulance in the circumstances, but one that landed him in trouble with the FIA.
It’s clear now that we have a great World Championship battle on our hands. This was supposed to be Russell’s year, with the Brit making the most of what has been a long apprenticeship with Williams and latterly alongside Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes to show that he’s capable of winning a World Championship, as his close contemporary Lando Norris did last year.
Antonelli was expected to continue on his learning curve, keep Russell on his toes, and maybe take the odd win here or there. All went to plan when Russell won the season opener in Australia, but since then Antonelli has had a sensational run of four victories on the bounce – and nobody has ever scored their first quartet of wins in consecutive races.
Luck continues to go his way and against Russell, with the latter’s power unitfailure on Sunday the most public example.
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“Of course, it was nice to end the weekend well,” the 19-year-old said after the flag. “It was not really the way I wanted to win, because it was a close fight with George, and I think would have gone all the way until the end. We’ll take it, and this time it went well for me and bad for him, and it might be another occasion where it goes bad for me and well for him. We’ve just got to keep maximizing and take every opportunity that presents.”
It’s not just about his rival’s misfortunes – Antonelli has been on brilliant form from the start of the season, taking advantage of the huge reset in the rules that has negated years of knowledge accumulated by more experienced drivers to make the most of this new energy management era. Just five races in he has a huge 43-point over Russell, and while there is still a long way to go, it’s a cushion that must look daunting to the man in second place.
To his credit Russell tried to see the positives when he met the media after the race, despite the pain caused by that power unit failure.
“I loved it, I thought it was great, and I’ve not had a battle like this in years,” he said when Road and Track asked about the fight with Antonelli. “I haven’t seen a battle like this, probably since Lewis and Nico [Rosberg] in Bahrain 2014. And these new cars allow you to do that, these new engines allow you to do that. I don’t know why anybody wants to change them, because we had amazing battles in Melbourne, we had great battles in China. Kimi and I have had a great battle today and yesterday, and that’s only possible because of how these power units are. We know how we need to race, and I think we both had it under control, and it was great, because I really, really enjoyed it personally.”
The mechanical failure aside, it all worked out well in the end in terms of the on-track fighting.
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However Mercedes boss Toto Wolff accepted that it could easily have gone the other way, and he could have been dealing with the sort of disastrous outcome that cropped up more than in the Hamilton/Rosberg days.
“There is another side, which we need to look at, that it was close a few times,” he said when asked by Road and Track about the fight. “Kimi tucking back in and locking the tires could have ended in a double DNF. And not because of over-aggressive driving with each other, simply by a mistake. So it’s important to analyze the race, then discuss with the drivers whether they felt it was a bit close, and if that is the case, how can we avoid these very, very tough situations? Or let’s say situations where we deem it a little bit too close…”
Wolff made the point that you can get away with that sort of in-fighting when you have an advantage on the rest – but that might not be the case all year. Indeed in the Saturday sprint Antonelli lost second place to a closely-following Lando Norris when he went across the grass.
“There is another angle that we had a pace advantage today,” said Wolff. “And that when they were driving behind each other, we were going half a second quicker than everybody behind us. When they were fighting, we were losing a second to all the others. So we had the gap, we had the margin today, and then it’s easy to easy to accept that they are fighting to a certain degree. But obviously that’s not going to be always the case. So as much as we look very sport sportsmen-like today, allowing it, there could be a situation where we would maybe turn it down a notch.”
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How they behave on track in future races is one thing. The other factor is how Russell can now turn things around. Antonelli is brimming with confidence, which wasn’t the case last year when he faced the inevitable rookie stumbles. He’s also got the full support of everyone in the Mercedes camp.
It’s not that folk are consciously favoring him over Russell, who has been part of the scenery at Mercedes since his junior days, and is well-liked. Having been picked up as a young kid and brought through the ranks Antonelli is like a favored son to everyone in the team, from Wolff downwards.
People just love him, and want him to succeed. The prospect of a guy winning the title in his second season – and having been just turned 20 of it – is an enticing one. It will be a great story, and quite something to be part of.
Russell can still turn things around, and he just has to keep doing the job on track. The fact that he took two poles in Montreal, won the sprint and was ahead of Antonelli when he retired should give him some confidence that he can bounce back. His boss believes that he can bounce back.
“Things have been going against him in the last few races,” said Wolff. “Today, certainly would have been big points to collect. He was in the lead. But if there’s one guy that I would choose in this paddock, in terms of resilience and determination, that would be George. He’s had to overcome adversity, previously, whether it’s from karting onwards to junior formulas, and he’s not gonna give up that fight. And honestly, there’s 17 races to go, if my calculation is right, so many points to score. So this is just wake up tomorrow and digest, forget, move on, move forward, and drive the best you can. And that’s exactly what he’s going to do.”