Chadwick says Russell's Canada retirement spared Mercedes a damaging team-mate clash

George Russell’s engine failure at the Canadian Grand Prix may have inadvertently protected Mercedes from a damaging intra-team flashpoint, according to three-time W Series champion and Formula 1 pundit Jamie Chadwick. Russell and rookie team-mate Kimi Antonelli had been fighting wheel-to-wheel for the lead at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for 30 laps before the Briton was forced to retire.

“I would have been interested to see if it got to the line,” Chadwick said. “I think they were a few laps away from that ending in tears. So, I don’t know if George’s engine failure came at a good time for Mercedes in terms of intra-team politics.”

Chadwick pointed to the nature of the Montreal circuit and the 2026 regulations as factors that made separation between the two cars almost impossible. “This track in itself doesn’t make it easy to make passes. So whenever Kimi was going for it, he was having to get pretty close to his team-mate George. I have not seen racing like that. We saw it a bit with the Ferraris, but for the lead of the race, in a long time.”

Antonelli claimed victory in Canada — his fourth consecutive win after three straight grand prix triumphs heading into the weekend — and now leads the drivers’ championship by a significant margin. Chadwick argued that despite the Italian’s public downplaying of his title ambitions, his on-track behaviour tells a different story.

“He keeps saying he’s not thinking about the championship, but 100% he’s now a championship leader with a big advantage,” she said. “His confidence has just grown.”

Chadwick also credited Antonelli’s aggressive mindset as the source of his recent edge over Russell. “I think the hot-headedness of Kimi is what’s giving him that tenth of a second in a way, especially when he was behind George and he was chasing him. You could see he had the bit between his teeth. He had that extra hunger, extra motivation to try to get on par with his team-mate.”

While Russell showed his own pace — Chadwick noted he “pulled it out when he needed to” in qualifying — she felt Antonelli looked the stronger driver across the Montreal weekend as a whole, suggesting that had he not made a mistake at Turn 10, he might have broken clear of Russell even before the retirement settled the matter.