By Martyn Herman
MONACO, June 4 (Reuters) – Championship leader Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes team mate George Russell said they will continue fighting wheel to wheel in this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix despite team boss Toto Wolff warning he might have to apply the handbrake.
At last month’s Canadian Grand Prix, 19-year-old Antonelli was left fuming after contact between the pair during the sprint race won by Russell.
The following day in the main race they locked horns again in a battle for the lead before Russell retired with a power unit failure, handing Antonelli his fourth successive victory.
While admitting it was “good cinema” Wolff said their duel had cost them both time and that he would be forced to intervene if they were putting team points at stake.
Antonelli said discussions had taken place a couple of days before arriving in Monaco to review what happened in Canada.
“Basically, the end of the discussion was that you can race each other fairly as long as there is respect and you don’t put yourselves in a situation where you could damage one of you or both of you,” the Italian told reporters on Thursday.
“The team doesn’t want to put rules, but understandably they want both cars to finish and to get as many points as possible. That is in our minds as well because we race for ourselves to be the best but also we race for the team to reward the 2,000 people who work for the team.”
“We’ll keep racing each other like in Canada but a bit more smartly. But definitely the team wants us to race freely because you can’t really put a leash on a driver.”
Britain’s Russell, who won the opening Grand Prix of the season in Melbourne but has since fallen 43 points behind Antonelli, insisted there were no concerns.
“We have to be trusted and this is what we do, we are drivers and we push ourselves to the limit every single lap,” he told reporters. “When we race we push each other to the limit.
“I know when you are sat on the sidelines in the pit wall like Toto of course it’s stressful and tense because you can’t control it but ultimately we have to be trusted and we are trusted. We’ll keep fighting but we know the boundaries.”
Antonelli is the first Italian since Alberto Ascari in 1952 to win four races in a row and also the first driver in the history of F1 to take his first four wins consecutively.
With Monaco marking the beginning of an intense period in the season and also a circuit that could seriously challenge the Mercedes domination, Antonelli is now the target.
Russell said after Canada the title is now Antonelli’s to lose, but the Italian played down feeling any pressure.
“It’s so early in the season, there are 17 or maybe more races to go and it’s too early to talk about the championship,” he said. “You can’t lose something you haven’t achieved.
“I feel pretty relaxed about the situation. I just want to keep on doing what I’m doing, raise the bar and try to win as much as possible.
“George is a super strong team mate and he will make my life very hard, but I just try to deal with every situation and then try to excel at what I do.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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