'They're brainless': Wolff dismisses claims Mercedes favour Antonelli over Russell

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has hit out at those accusing his team of favouring championship leader Kimi Antonelli over George Russell, insisting that both drivers will get equal treatment for as long as the title fight lasts.

Speaking at the team principals’ press conference at the Singapore Grand Prix on Friday (Oct 9), the Austrian ridiculed the claims.

"Do they think I have a button that says, 'George engine failure now'?" he said.

"They're brainless, whoever thinks that."

He said Mercedes had faced similar accusations in the past from fans of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who drove for the team until 2024, and suggested the latest claims were a product of social media today.

Disadvantaging one driver would make no sense, he added, when the team are also fighting for the constructors' championship, the teams' title decided by the combined points of both cars, and have always given their drivers equal equipment.

"Sometimes I read what people write. I find it hilarious," said Wolff.

"But really, zero understanding and respect for people who come up with these things. Rather than watching Formula One, they should do Teletubbies or Mickey mouse"

Each Formula One team fields two drivers, who work for the same employer but compete against each other for the drivers' championship. 

The claims have surfaced during a season in which Antonelli, 20, has pulled clear of his 28-year-old teammate. 

The Italian leads Russell by 84 points with seven rounds left, including Singapore. A race win is worth 25 points.

Russell's hopes took another blow on Oct 4, when an engine failure forced him out of the Bahrain Grand Prix, held in Sepang, Malaysia, while he was running third. 

It was his second engine failure of the season, and his run of mechanical problems has fuelled claims online that Mercedes are favouring Antonelli.

The failure also means he needs a new engine in Singapore. Drivers are limited in how many they may use in a season, and going over that limit brings a penalty that will send Russell to the back of the starting order for the main race on Sunday (Oct 11).

Antonelli has already served the same penalty, at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, where he started 19th and still won.

'Flavour of the month'

Asked whether a team naturally gravitates towards the driver delivering results, Wolff said he had tried to be "the most balanced and most transparent" with his drivers since entering the sport, and traced that approach to a conversation with four-time world champion Alain Prost.

As a newcomer to the sport, he had asked the Frenchman why his partnership with Ayrton Senna at McLaren in the late 1980s turned so bitter.

Prost told him the drivers never knew where they stood with the team, feeling like "the flavour of the month" one moment and victims of internal politics the next.

Wolff said staying even-handed had not been easy when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg fought each other for the title as Mercedes teammates from 2014 to 2016, but that his current drivers knew where he stood.

Both came through Mercedes' young driver academy. 

Wolff said Antonelli had been with the team since he was 11 and Russell since he was 17. 

He added that he remained close to Russell away from the track, with the pair travelling together and frequenting the same coffee shop and gym.

"That's why it's pretty annoying to have some lunatics that have no understanding really about how relationships work coming up with these kind of accusations," he said.

No favouritism: Wolff

Wolff also said Mercedes' decision to run different versions of the car in Singapore had nothing to do with favouritism.

Mercedes fitted new bodywork parts in Malaysia that were meant to make the car faster but did not deliver the expected gain, so the team opted to run Antonelli's car with the upgrades and Russell's with the older parts to compare their performance.

Wolff said the team did not know which version would be quicker and that there was "no great political thinking behind it".

He insisted that Antonelli's substantial points advantage would not change Mercedes' approach to managing its drivers.

"Even if it is now more realistic for Kimi to win a championship in sheer mathematical probability, we would still give George the same opportunities, and that's important," he said.

Mercedes had worked that way since he joined in 2013, he added, "and then people can think what they want".

The subject drew a quip from McLaren chief executive Zak Brown, also on the panel, who suggested "Silver Arrows rules" would fix it. 

It was a play on Mercedes' nickname and on "papaya rules", McLaren's in-house code, named after the team's orange colour, for how its two drivers race each other.

Wolff replied that McLaren had "the exclusive rights on fruits".

Asked about Rosberg, who beat Hamilton to the 2016 title and retired days later, Wolff admitted that he would have handled their rivalry differently with the benefit of another decade's experience. 

He took the blame for trying to "micromanage" the final race of that season.

Later that evening, Russell outpaced Antonelli in qualifying for the sprint, a shorter race held the day before the grand prix that carries fewer points. 

He took second behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen, while his championship-leading teammate finished seventh.

The Briton was just 0.120sec off Verstappen's pole-setting pace. His engine penalty will not apply to the 21-lap sprint, which starts at 5pm on Oct 10.

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