Russell and Antonelli’s title fight erupts as Mercedes rivalry turns physical

On lap six of the Montreal sprint race, the Formula 1 World Championship fight between the Mercedes team-mates George Russell and Kimi Antonelli became physical. No longer one step removed where one guy simply outperforms the other or enjoys better reliability, no longer just an esoteric exercise of mathematics, but down and dirty, where one guy’s car in this split-second is bang in the way of the other’s ambition and neither is prepared to give.

It’s one of racing’s oldest stories and one of its best, depth-charging onto the surface the sport’s human competitive essence so that it can no longer be hidden beneath the team game or the technicalities. It only really became physical in F1 once the cars and circuits became safe enough for contact to be considered by drivers to no longer be unthinkable because of its likely fatal consequences. It was almost certainly just a subconscious recalibrating of the risk/reward factor, but it seemed to happen some time in the 1980s as the likes of Alan Jones used physical intimidation to prevail in battle.

The first hint of it between title-fighting team-mates came as Nelson Piquet veered towards the other Williams of Nigel Mansell in overtaking him into Lesmo 1, forcing him to give way, at the 1986 Italian Grand Prix. But it was taken to a different level by Ayrton Senna against Alain Prost a couple of years later at McLaren, with hostilities beginning at Estoril where Senna pinned his rival against the pitwall in an attempt to deter him from passing. Contact wasn’t actually made on that occasion and ironically it was Prost who got his defence in first when they actually collided for the first time – at the Suzuka chicane in 1989 – with Prost in the lead turning in early on Senna to thwart what he anticipated would be Senna’s patented ‘move or we crash’ tactics. It was something Prost could afford to do given that he was leading the championship, with both of them a long way clear of the rest, so a non-score for both was better for Prost than a defeat with points.

Since then it’s become not exactly commonplace, but a regular feature that inevitably flares up from time to time when two top drivers are in a dominant car and therefore fighting over the sport’s biggest prize. Sebastian Vettel/Mark Webber, Istanbul 2010, Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg, Spa 2014 and Barcelona 2016, Oscar Piastri/Lando Norris, Montreal ’25 all come to mind as obvious examples of this.

Now it’s come back to Mercedes as the team with the fastest car and two guys trying to win their first world title. A senior, highly experienced, super-fast regular grand prix winner who has never had a title-contending car before, and a startlingly fast teenager getting to exploit such a machine in just his second season of F1.

With that as the backdrop, the way it all played out in Montreal was fascinating. Russell came into the weekend as the one under the cosh. Because not only was he 20 points down on a team-mate who had just won the previous three consecutive races from pole, but it was also on the back of Russell’s sub-par performance in Miami where he was soundly trounced, three places and half a minute behind Antonelli.