Author Archives: PressBox

After the opening three races this season, Mercedes team-mates Kimi Antonelli and George Russell are locked in an intra-team title fight, with Antonelli leading Russell by nine points. The 19-year-old rookie has won in China and Japan and took a historic pole in China. Russell converted pole into victory in the season opener in Australia. Observers still see the championship likely to be decided inside Mercedes, although McLaren and Ferrari remain potential outside threats.

Former drivers and commentators have urged Russell to change his approach as Antonelli builds momentum. Sky F1’s Martin Brundle warned Russell must treat Antonelli as a genuine title threat, invoking “peak Hamilton” and urging a quick response rather than being forced to chase. David Coulthard told the Up to Speed podcast that Russell should shed his “Mr Nice Guy” demeanor, adopt a more aggressive style and “get his shoulders behind that and get his elbows out.” The pair have not yet engaged in wheel-to-wheel combat, and Mercedes’ outward unity masks a fierce internal contest.

Helmut Marko predicted the drivers’ championship will boil down to the two Mercedes drivers and said he still expects Mercedes to win the title. He pointed to Mercedes’ dominance in the opening rounds, including strong qualifying margins, repeated 1-2s in early qualifying sessions and wins in the early races, and he acknowledged Ferrari and McLaren have posed race challenges and that Ferrari’s ADUO engine upgrade could influence competitiveness. Marko additionally warned about Antonelli’s historic tendency to fade in European rounds. Commentary around Russell’s form has blended on-track results with psychological reading; his early seasons at Mercedes produced fourth-to-eighth finishes across his first four years at the team, and he has publicly likened his development to Michael Schumacher’s slower path to a title. Insiders say the intra-team battle has visibly affected him, describing him as stressed and “a shell of his former self,” and analysts argue he needs a swift, assertive response if he is to reverse the momentum.

Jean Todt publicly reassessed Michael Schumacher’s character and admitted on the High Performance podcast that Schumacher intentionally caused two on-track incidents that he said cost championships. Todt, who ran Ferrari from 1994 to 2009 and later served as FIA president, said people held a “completely wrong” perception of Schumacher and called “the biggest misconception” that he was arrogant. He said he had long defended Schumacher but on the podcast acknowledged he had seen Schumacher “cheat twice and badly,” a reversal of earlier public defenses.

Todt identified the first episode as the 1997 season finale at Jerez, when Schumacher turned into Jacques Villeneuve, became beached in the gravel and was ultimately disqualified from the championship, an outcome Todt said “cost him the championship.” The second was the 2006 Monaco qualifying session, when Todt said Schumacher deliberately stopped at La Rascasse, bringing out yellow flags that halted Fernando Alonso’s lap, drew a stewards’ penalty and forced Schumacher to start from the back of the grid. Todt said those actions contributed to Schumacher losing the 2006 title to Alonso.

Todt described both incidents as emotional, impulsive errors made in the heat of racing rather than calculated malice and urged some indulgence in judgment. He balanced his reassessment with a reaffirmation of Schumacher’s sporting legacy, citing seven world championships, a run of five consecutive drivers’ titles with Ferrari and 72 Grand Prix victories. Todt recalled personal details that contrasted with Schumacher’s on-track intensity, describing him as fragile, shy and generous, and he recounted a private half-day test at Fiorano Schumacher requested to reassure himself he remained competitive. Todt also noted Schumacher’s charitable giving after the 2005 Asian tsunami. His comments revised parts of the long-standing public narrative by acknowledging self-inflicted errors while defending the broader achievements of his former driver.

Toto Wolff said he had considered dismissing both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg during Mercedes’ heated 2016 intra-team rivalry, even calling Mercedes CEO Dieter Zetsche to propose making the drivers redundant. He said he sent internal emails that would effectively remove the pair, briefly removed them from the squad by email, and warned that any repeat of the on-track clashes would cost one of them his seat. Wolff cited a sequence of avoidable incidents, including the opening-lap collision and double-DNF in Spain and a final-lap collision in Austria, as the flashpoints that prompted his contemplated action and his warning that “one has to go.”

Wolff framed the contemplated double-dismissal as a last-resort measure to protect the team rather than a personal vendetta, saying the rivalry threatened the Mercedes brand and the livelihoods of about 2,500 factory workers. He acknowledged that assigning sole blame could be difficult, saying “incidents can be nuanced or 50-50,” and that uncertainty led him to step back from sacking the drivers. He described the period as the “Silver War.”

The immediate crisis eased after Nico Rosberg won the 2016 world championship and then retired, while Lewis Hamilton remained with Mercedes.