Mercedes F1 Technical Director James Allison has rubbished claims of favoritism at the team between its drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Allison claimed that such thoughts do not even enter the minds of those at the team, as it is in their best interest for both drivers to do well.
Many fans online have raised questions about Mercedes and team boss Toto Wolff favoring Antonelli over Russell, especially in the aftermath of the Barcelona GP, where it seemed like only a handful of Mercedes personnel attended Russell’s podium ceremony. This has raised the age-old question within F1 teams of whether a team would ever favor one driver over the other.
Speaking on the Silver Arrows Radio Show recently, Mercedes’ Technical Director, James Allison, shut down any such theories, explaining why the existence of favoritism isn’t possible in an F1 team.
“People are very invested in the people that they support, and they want their driver to prosper above all others. All I can say is if you ever wanted to understand where the feeling of favouritism sits in our psyche, you’d need to come and work in a team.
“Because if you’re lucky enough to come and work in a team, you would instantly be imbued with the culture of that team, and you would understand how utterly alien that thought is to anyone in the team when we hear it,” said Allison.
“It’s like we’re hearing another language. It’s an argument that you can never win because both sides of it are just completely divorced from one another. Because it is in all of our interest that both our drivers prosper and actually we’re ambivalent about which one is better than the other, we want a 1-2 in every race and we don’t care the order,” he added.
Allison also said that the only time Mercedes would care about who finishes ahead is if one driver was mathematically out of contention for the championship.
Mercedes cares more about the Constructors’ title than the Drivers’ championship, claims James Allison
James Allison has also claimed that the Constructors’ title is more important for the team personnel at Mercedes than the Drivers’ championship, given that they receive bonuses based on the team’s position in the standings. He explained that this is another reason why favoring one driver over the other does not make sense within the setup.
“Our main championship, weirdly, is not the Drivers’ Championship, it’s the Constructors’ Championship. If we’re lucky enough to win a bonus, we win it on the basis of the Constructors’ position, not the drivers’. We don’t get anything for that,” said Allison.
“So everything we care about is Constructors’-oriented and favouritism makes zero sense to us in that respect. We just want maximum points from both the drivers at all times,” he added.
The Silver Arrows currently leads the Constructors’ Championship after seven rounds, as it holds a 72-point lead over Ferrari in second. As for the Drivers’ standings, Kimi Antonelli leads with 156 points, 41 ahead of Lewis Hamilton (P2) and 50 ahead of George Russell (P3).
Edited by Samyak Sharma
