Jul.13 (GMM) George Russell has dismissed options Mercedes is giving preferential therapy to teenage teammate Kimi Antonelli amid the Italian’s standout 2026 marketing campaign.
Antonelli is comfortably main the world championship at current, prompting hypothesis the staff is more and more being constructed across the 19-year-old.
“I did hear on the grapevine that there’s chatter about favouritism,” Russell advised the Day by day Mail.
“It doesn’t hassle me – and neither is it true.”
The Briton mentioned there could be no cause for Mercedes to again one driver over the opposite. “There are 2,000 folks within the staff and they’re all on a bonus if we win the constructors’ championship, so why would there be favouritism?
“We’re each allowed to race, until the staff’s overriding goal to win the utmost factors out there is beneath menace.”
Former System 1 driver Timo Glock believes tensions between the pair are nonetheless inevitable.
“There’s undoubtedly plenty of rigidity there,” he advised Heute. “For me, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the 2 conflict.
“We’ll actually see that just a few extra instances this 12 months.”
One other former driver Ralf Schumacher, nonetheless, believes Russell nonetheless has Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s full backing.
“George Russell has identified Toto Wolff for a very long time,” he advised Sky Deutschland.
“So long as Russell continues to conduct himself professionally, doesn’t become involved in politics, and doesn’t attempt to intervene with Antonelli, I actually don’t see any cause why Mercedes ought to substitute him.”
Schumacher acknowledged, nonetheless, that Antonelli – one other Wolff protege – has develop into the benchmark contained in the staff.
“Toto Wolff laid out his view of the state of affairs very clearly,” he mentioned.
“He actually mentioned that Kimi ‘is in a special class’. It couldn’t have been clearer.
“And albeit, that’s precisely how issues stand in the intervening time.”
