Toto Wolff/Mercedes on Antonelli/Russell: “Then we’ll look like idiots”

Mercedes and Madring – a perfect match: George Russell set the fastest time on the new Madring circuit, whilst Kimi Antonelli clocked the fastest time in the second practice session.

Admittedly, Ferrari aren’t far off the pace. However, I would point out that the Italians are often competitive on Fridays, only to be mercilessly outpaced by Mercedes on Saturdays when the Mercedes drivers really open the throttle.

Mercedes’ world champion-maker Toto Wolff sums up the action on the first day of Formula 1 practice at the new Madring as follows: “It wasn’t easy at the start because the track – even though it’s brand new – builds up so much grip. We then had the problem of not being able to get the medium tyres up to temperature. It took a lap each time, then it got better. But then we noticed extreme tyre degradation because, as I said, the track builds up so much grip. That really took us by surprise.”

The 54-year-old Viennese driver jokes: “When we saw after the first practice session just how drastically the tyres were wearing down, our head of strategy said – we’ll be making six pit stops in the race here. We were seeing a loss of eight-tenths of a second per lap; we’ve never experienced that with the tyres before.”

“But I’m convinced it’ll get much better, and in the end we’ll probably make just one pit stop here in the Grand Prix.”

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Toto Wolff also speaks again about the heated scenes involving his two GP winners, Antonelli and Russell, at Monza, where Kimi even skidded into the gravel. The Austrian says: “We really rubbed salt into the wound there, because in situations like that there’s a fine line between hero and zero. If they collide in that first corner, we’ll look like complete idiots.”

“I’ve told both our drivers that I don’t want to see anything like that. I don’t want to see them braking and overtaking right down to the wire against each other. Racing is fine, but not driving as if we were on the final lap of the World Championship final. We don’t want to drop any World Championship points.”