Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has conceded to enjoying the “luxury problem” that has developed between Kimi Antonelli and George Russell.
The two drivers were involved in an edge-of-the-seat battle for the first 30 laps of the Canadian Grand Prix, which left Wolff on the verge of stepping in on occasion for fear of a collision between his two drivers.
It was only a power unit failure in Russell’s W17 that denied everyone watching the continuation of their scrap to the chequered flag, where Antonelli captured his fourth successive victory to open up a 43-point lead over his team-mate.
Naturally declaring what unfolded to be “bittersweet”, speaking to Sky Sports F1, Wolff said: “You’re extremely happy for one driver and deserving, and then you feel gutted for the other one, so that is difficult.
“In any case, Kimi has done a splendid job and deserved the win, but George, shame, he was in the lead of the race.
“We half enjoyed watching them, how they fought it out, and we wish we had had a one and a two.”
Watching the fight unfold between Russell and Antonelli who, on occasion came within centimetres, it seemed, of a collision, Wolff said: “Every time we thought about saying something, that we’d had enough for the moment because we were losing time to [Max] Verstappen behind us, the next two laps we were fast again.
“As long as we maintained that gap, it was okay watching it, but it obviously can go wrong, and not because one wants to hit the other one, but simply, you can take two cars out.”
Wolff has confirmed that no driver was favoured at any stage, that they were given equal tools to fight with in terms of deployment and battery, leaving him in a fortuitous position to allow them to get on with it, and with the hope of more to come in the future.
“We never changed the engine strategy,” he said. “So the one defending had the tools he needed, the one attacking had the tools they needed. There was no difference between the two.
“Obviously, it’s a luxury problem. I would hope we can go like this for much longer in the season, but you can’t discount the others.
“If it were closer behind us, if we were under threat to lose a position, then we would definitely jump in and say, ‘Let’s not lose so much time with each other’.”
