Has Toto Wolff Already Moved On From George Russell?

Has Toto Wolff already moved Mercedes on from George Russell? And no, this is not a Max and Mercedes puff piece, by the way. And nor is it me blowing smoke up George's posterior. Four races in and Kimi Antonelli has three wins, three consecutive poles and a championship lead to boot. That's not me blowing this out of proportion, folks, because, well, we knew Kimi would probably improve this year, but surely nobody expected him to be this comfortable this quickly. Especially considering that back in January of this year, we were all thinking 2026 was going to be boring. Now, oh, this is just George's for the taking, isn't it? He's the championship favorite here. We certainly didn't expect Antonelli to win this many races and be this far ahead in the championship, over 20 points ahead of his teammate. And I bet George didn't expect that either. Him coming off the back of arguably the most disorientating weekend of his Mercedes career. And say what you will about the pundit and his takes regarding Max Verstappen, this time around Damon Hill, his read of Russell seems a little bit more accurate in that the version of Russell that we saw back in 2025 has gone missing a little bit. Then there's Juan Pablo Montoya, who's been wildly inconsistent with his takes this year, we must admit that, but he did add that Russell's mindset might be in the wrong place. So while we're asking whether Toto Wolff is about to move on from George Russell, we might already be too late. Maybe the real question is that whether or not Toto already has moved on. The Miami Autodrome is a circuit that George Russell does not love, and Kimi Antonelli does love. But despite all of that, he got Russell a hard-fought fourth place, albeit with Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen's races completely falling off within the last few laps. And had that not happened, Russell's lot would have been probably a sixth place. According to him, he tried significant differential and brake bias changes mid-weekend and found a chunk of lap time. So yes, in one sense, that's a driver adapting under pressure, but here's the part that counts for toffee. Russell reportedly found those changes by moving closer to Antonelli's setup, and when he did find that time, his radio messages were along the lines of, yeah, that was weird. Interesting. Two drivers for the same team, with the same car, with meaningfully different setups. The more experienced one moving toward the rookie's direction and suddenly finding time he hadn't found on his own. I am not going down the sabotage route because that has been tried and tested in Mercedes for the last few years and absolutely butt-kiss has shown up. And we also got to remember that he had access to the same data, the same telemetry, the same onboard footage, and the same facilities to actually look at his rivals. And yet, out of all of that, despite everything he had to hand, he went with Kimi's direction. That tells you a lot about the circuit itself, that Antonelli may simply just read the circuit better. But it might also tell you all you need to know as to where the change of direction and the trends and the hope is aiming within that particular garage and that everyone at that garage is looking at what Kimi Antonelli is doing and suddenly getting absolutely groovy. Yes, that may not be fair on Russell, but, well, if you look at the standings, the majority of the points are coming from the Italian Stappan, not from Russell. Russell is second in the championship and a one-two for Mercedes means the absolute best prize for the team itself. That's the news part, so if that's all you came here for, well, there you go. As you may probably understand, I'm not done yet. Here's the analysis part, and this is where I think things get really, really interesting. You see, JPM, for all his volatility this year, especially with Max Verstappen, just a couple of years ago, he was lording the Dutchman and now he's calling for the Dutchman's head and for him to get loads of penalty points. He said something important that got buried underneath the Russell's mindset framing. George is faster than Antonelli. That George can put in that ultimate lap and be very clean. And if we're honest, last year was convincing. You may not like the man, but he is certainly worthy of being in Formula 1. We all have to remember the Australian Grand Prix when the momentum was absolutely ambiguous and it was basically all to play for. Nobody really knowing how these cars were going to race and George ultimately came out on top despite issues with battery recharges, etc. The momentum was there, but then it wasn't through one reason and another, and it's not really come back to him since. He's also won quite a few races. He's had some really mega starts and he's put simply in a situation similar to Leclerc in that, in theory, he is championship worthy, but it really hasn't come to him yet for one reason or another due to operational errors or just being not at the right team at the right time. And not to mention the domination of Hamilton or Verstappen. Loves the car that he's driving right now and he also loves the 2026 regulations. And that maybe if all the stars were to align out of the two drivers right now, if they were able to get their ultimate lap with absolutely nothing getting in the way, George still has the highest potential. But yet, despite all of that, he is still almost a whole Grand Prix win behind the Italian in the championship. So, okay, if it's not a skill issue or a pace issue, then what is it? That's a question Toto's probably asked and then answered himself long before any of us noticed. So we do need to go back to 2024, folks, specifically the moment Hamilton told Mercedes he was off to Ferrari. The thing everyone was thinking about in that moment were all sorts of implications for the Brit and maybe about Antonelli stepping up to the plate and everyone thinking that was absolutely bonkers. But the thing barely anyone was writing about carefully enough was this. What happens to Bono? And if you're not too sure who I mean by Bono, I'm talking about Lewis Hamilton's former race engineer, Peter Bonington. Somebody who has been with Mercedes ever since it became a full works team. Long before that, even in the brawn days. He is not just some random engineer, folks. He has been with the best of the best in the last 16 years or so. We all know him being chummed up with Lewis Hamilton and winning six world championships together, but he was also the race engineer of Michael Schumacher. So two of the most talented Formula One drivers of all time, Peter was right beside them. And as we've seen with Max Verstappen and Giampiero Lampiase, that racing relationship is absolutely pivotal, especially now with the regulations making it extremely important that what the engineer is seeing on his data screens and what the computer on board the car is doing needs to be telegraphed to the driver to get the best out of it. And yes, people of course considered whether or not Bono would just go along with Lewis over to Ferrari, because in theory that would be entirely possible. But it's quite clear that Toto anticipated all of that and locked Bono down. Yes, he ultimately saw Jerome D'Ambrosio and Loic Serra, Mercedes stalwarts, and Jerome being the former second in command to Toto, the heir apparent, now as Bradley Lord, go with him to Ferrari through one reason or another, but it wasn't Peter. That close relationship was not to be. And what also helped Wolf keep Bono there is that reportedly Peter did not really fancy move over to Italy, and that is a very common trend amongst many people who have been stationed in Motorsport Valley for a long time and have since gone on to have a family. That place, Motorsport Valley in the Midlands of the United Kingdom, that is a very, very powerful Euro. Mercedes made good use of that. But one thing I find extremely curious is why wasn't Bono then sent over to Russell's side of the gouge for 2025 to get the best out of, in theory, the new team leader, and instead he got commissioned over to the complete rookie? Curious, right? And I'm pretty sure at the time we had a curious George. Yes, you could argue that Antonelli was a rookie. It would make sense to surround him with experience. And there's also a reasonable argument to say that Russell really didn't need Bono levels of support because he was already established inside Mercedes with his own engineer, Marcus Dudley. But that's exactly the point. Mercedes chose where the biggest return on investment might be. He took, well, his most valuable engineering asset and pointed him at his youngest driver. A pretty loud statement of intent if you ask me. And in regards to the working approach, Bono told us this for your consideration about what the assignment actually looked like. It is chalk and cheese. With Lewis, I knew what he was thinking. I knew that he didn't need to be told. Whereas when I started with Kimi, it was a case of, I don't know what he doesn't know. An engineer who had spent years inside the minds of Schumacher and Hamilton, people who knew exactly what they were doing, was now being tasked to help out a blank page. So you would think based on this quote, he'd be more suited to work with somebody like Russell, who is purely through and through Mercedes coded, but no, and refining an existing page or maybe polishing it into making the ultimate page that it could possibly be. So to me, that gives construction project energy. The more valuable return on Bono's experience was an 18-year-old Italian with everything still to learn and somebody who crashed an FP1 on his first time in an F1 car in a live session. And the construction thus far has been methodical and yes, of course, pretty successful to start. And I take you now back to the end of the European leg last year, which we all have to admit, even if you do like Kimi and you think he's the best driver in the world, the European leg of 2025 was absolutely abysmal for the child. Soul destroying even. It reportedly got to a point that after he got a time penalty for taking Albon off of the track, Peter had to have a fair few words with the Italian. And according to Simon Laserby on the F1 Show podcast, it was akin to a bollocking. And whenever you hear the word bollocking in Formula 1, it's probably closer to the levels of Gunther Steiner with a smashed door, but it did work. The improvement was almost immediate. Not long after that, we started to see Antonelli get a couple more podiums. I mean, you've only got to look to Brazil. Oh my goodness. And then we get to China of this year and Bono had completely changed tack talking about Antonelli in the same avenues as Schumacher before his interactions with Lewis Hamilton. Now that in of itself is interesting. We could expect Bono to wax lyrical about the British champion for years and years and years and years, but no, he went to the German. And another key twist is that come Miami, Toto Wolff apparently tried to get on the radio when Antonelli hit his second track limits warning and Bono reportedly told his boss, leave it to me. As we all know, Toto sometimes likes to get involved over the radio. Whenever he does so, it usually generates a lot of headlines, but here he was being told to stay off his own radio by the engineer and he listened. And apparently according to Bono, the comments that he is giving the Italian are becoming less and less corrective with every passing race. And it's still very surreal to hear instead of get in there, Lewis. It's get in there, Kimi. It just makes me feel really old, man. Now, I just want to say right here, I am not disparaging George's engineer, Marcus Dudley at all, because, well, he's been around George's side of the garage ever since George arrived at Mercedes. So it's quite clear. They do get along. They do vibe well and that he is a perfectly capable race engineer. But when you really look at it objectively, he is no Bono. And then we have to talk about the contract and this is where it gets structurally vital, because we all recall after months and months of dilly-dallying when we all thought it was done and dusted, but then it actually wasn't and George throwing many cats amongst many pigeons around that debate, they both, Kimi and George, got announced for 2026 only. And we were all thinking, why only 2026 publicly? We had to rely on Russell saying he would be at Mercedes in 2027 as long as he performed in 2026. And let's be fair, the specific criteria aren't public knowledge and really, nor should they be. But this is how arrangements tend to work in practice. There'll be a margin at work, some kind of measurable target, something that turns performs from a nice word into an actual bone of contention. And if Russell came into this year expecting Antonelli to need another full season to find his feet and actually beat that performance target that could give him the 2027 option, well, things have changed, my friend. It might ultimately be easy. Kimi might absolutely flop, but based on what he's already been able to do and how he's been able to absolutely endear himself to F1 media, it's going to be a challenge. And also nobody expected Kimi to be where he is right now after the fourth round. And I'm sure that Toto didn't expect that either. And we all know that Wolf likes to talk and talk and talk. But one thing he talked about was really interesting in that the prospect of Kimi being where he is right now scares him, especially if it hits a rough patch later in the season. Maybe he's protecting a teenager from getting too far ahead of himself, or maybe he's building a narrative landing pad for that rough patch that he suspects is coming, or both. But either way, Toto is bracing for an impact. But one thing is for sure, I still remember the moment that Kimi brought his classmates to the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and Kama bit him in the bum after that because that first race, the only chance he probably will get to race at Imola, it didn't end well for him. It was the beginning of the absolute collapse that was the European leg. And unavoidably, in the background of all of this, there is, of course, Max Verstappen. Now hold on. Now I'm going to pull out my magic wand here and say, no, I command you to not be thinking I'm saying Max is going to Mercedes. I'm not saying any of that. You've just got to hear me out, OK? Yes, Red Bull are four from the constructors. Not the collapse that many predicted, but nowhere near where Max Verstappen team expects themselves to be. He hasn't got a podium in 2026, although Miami arguably could have seen his first podium had he, of course, not slipped up at the start. But the reported exit cause is there around the summer break. That's looking very live, given where he is in the championship with only 26 points to his name. Reported is the key word there. Nobody outside the contract room knows the exact mechanics, but the noise exists for a reason. It is also there to generate lots and lots of media speculation and a lot of news articles when things are looking relatively dry. Realistically, given what Max has said in recent times, he's either going to bow out of Formula One entirely or just remain with Red Bull throughout the remainder of his contract at the very least. He seems relatively content, praising the workers of Red Bull of being able to do what they can, despite the massive brain drain. There's also been a lot of organisational changes, which hopefully will elevate a lot of people within the team who might be the next Adrian Newey, the next Rob Marshall, the next Wheatley. We just didn't know their names yet or what they were capable of. We may know soon enough. And not to mention, he's got so much freedom within Red Bull to do what he wants. His sim racing, his own Verstappen racing team. He's also got the Nürburgring 24 hours to really consider and his future. And then let's not forget what Ford's been saying about Le Mans. Would he really find that same liberty with Mercedes? I think he should just stick with what he's got already, that Mercedes in GT racing is cool. That's fair enough. And that might be the best that Toto ever gets. And yeah, it does remind me of what JPM also said about Verstappen, that Ford should get really, really cross with Verstappen. Well, no, they're more than happy to let him do his GT stuff with Mercedes. If they can get him for WEC or something like that, I think they'd be cool with that. And besides, walking away from an empire that you've done a lot to build is never really that simple. Nevertheless, Toto hasn't fully closed the Verstappen door permanently. He talks about it sometimes, then it opens up again. He's also called Russell a killer. That's complimentary language. He's even floated the idea of George staying at Mercedes for years, 2037. That's also nice to know. But nice things to know, they are not contract people. In reality, Toto's keeping his options alive while saying nothing that costs him anything. It all goes back to what he's been doing for the last few months and just flooding the zone, flooding the media with all of these quips and witticisms that means that within a few days, they all become buried. So we're not actually quite sure what he's saying. And that is what he is banking on us to do. And you might be complaining about me bashing on Toto for ages and ages and ages, but can you really blame me? Because he talks all the time. If he were to commit to Russell right now, long term, and for Toto, long term is a two plus one deal, he is deliberately denying himself the opportunity to bag somebody else. Toto doesn't want his hands tied. Optionality is his favourite word, and that is something I've seen for a very long time now. He likes to have options because option reads power as in, ah, yes, well, I could have that driver, but why would I want that driver when I could have that driver? I mean, after the time of Lewis Hamilton and then Bottas and then Russell, I think he would very much like to just scour the grid, ideally, and try and pick someone else to help out or maybe cooperate with the likes of Antonelli. Or maybe be Antonelli's lackey, the next Bottas. And in a scenario, he might want George to be that Bottas, but I don't think George wants to be that Bottas because as Bottas said, that experience was a pain in the ass. And we all know that Bottas very much cherishes his ass. And Russell knows that optionality is name of the game in Mercedes. It's sitting underneath every qualifying lap and every setup decision he makes and every debrief. It reminds me of the days of Williams' prime, the 1990s. And it's also really apt given that Wolfe does have history with Williams. When Frank Williams and Patrick Head may call swiftly, even if they were hasty, for the good of the team, not the driver's feelings or the court of public opinion. Hill's full read is worth taking seriously too because he's reacting to a pattern across two seasons that Russell has had a little bit of bad luck and it put him on the back foot. If you were expecting me to absolutely blast George and say he's absolutely terrible, then I hate to disappoint you. And I'm not also going to say that he is the absolute best driver in the world and this is absolutely heinous and that this is sabotage. I'm not saying that either. I don't think anyone's properly processing what we've got here. Antonelli on 100 points already. All of the memes I've seen akin to, let's go. That's what Kimi's doing. I think that's perfectly accurate. As in, no one's quite sure where you're going. It's just Kimi just going, let's go. But yet, it is also important to acknowledge that he has, George, had issue after issue. China's Q3 technical failure, for example, cost Russell what had looked like a very real shot at pole. Then the safety car in Suzuka handed Antonelli a win, the raw pace might not have given him cleanly. It might have, but we don't know for sure. Just two moments right there, that interrupted momentum at the exact moment Kimi was accelerating hardest through his development curve. All that did was send Kimi's confidence into orbit and overdrive and unlock Naomi, which, let's be real, was his cleanest weekend, despite the start line issues remaining a key area of growth still. I still believe the version of Russell that we saw at Melbourne is still there. It's just waiting for the best opportunity possible to be able to get out there with nothing getting in his way that either disrupts him or basically denies him what he should have, in theory, got. But as we have seen in time and time gone by in Formula One, you've just got to take what you're given. That sometimes you think you deserve the win, but you ultimately don't get it for one reason or another. You've just got to roll with the punches and how you roll with those punches really defines you and your entire career. And as I've said in previous videos, it really depends on what Russell does next. If he just takes it on the chin, at least publicly, he might be able to rebound from all of this in a similar way to the way Norris was able to rebound from all of the stuff that happened with him at the beginning of the season and how Piastri was able to get to 30-plus points ahead of him. If we start to get Russell complaining time and time again that there's something going on with Mercedes and stirring up his fan base to think there's sabotage going on here or absolutely point-blank saying Mercedes are not giving me the car that I need or I want, that is not going to go down well with Toto. And given all the stuff that Kimi's been doing thus far, that's a narrative and F1 wants to build up narratives really, really quickly. And given all the negative narratives that we've seen regarding the regulations, this is a positive new story. So F1 is even more desperate for this to absolutely stick and to be the defining arc of 2026. Yeah, not the whole 50-50 split being killed off in four races. And that brings us on to Canada, another sprint weekend. This should be happy hunting ground for Russell since he won there last year from pole and grabbed a P3 the year before that in a much weaker car. Last year, George described his qualifying lap as one of the most exhilarating of his career. At the same time, Kimi stood on that same podium in third, his first ever. So overwhelmed by the crowd chanting his name that he admitted to massive goosebumps, especially after him having fended off the likes of McLaren's Piastri. Back then, we thought that, oh, bless, that's a really wholesome sight. The leader and the student together with a double podium. But to me, it's aged curiously. Former driver James Hinchcliffe, for example, said that Canada could easily be the place where Russell halts the Antonelli momentum and starts to claw something back. It might be just seven points if it's a 1-2, but it's important to get it underneath 20 points and get it back to something which in theory could be sorted out with a couple of good podiums. And if you ask me to add to Hinchcliffe's take, it absolutely has to work out in Canada, especially considering that the ADUO will be reassessed after the Canadian Grand Prix and any potential upgrades could be put in effect not long after that, which could allow Honda to catch up, Ferrari to catch up, Audi to catch up, and all of the other teams with their own upgrades because they're bringing upgrades to Canada because everything has been completely screwed up thanks to Bahrain and Jetta falling off the Canada in terms of upgrade maps. Russell doesn't have much more time to be able to capitalise on Mercedes potentially locking out the front row. If Antonelli wins there at one of Russell's favourite tracks or most bountiful tracks in recent times and the points gap goes above 25, that is a narrative plot point within any story that it suddenly becomes a little bit insurmountable. Okay, that's not really a word. It just becomes that little bit harder. Kimi would own one of the few spaces George thought still was his. It reminds me of when times were good for Oscar when he won in Miami, which was a special place for Lando. All important momentum at the time, which brings us back to the start. Has Toto already moved on from George Russell? Well, he hasn't said so, nor will he ever say so. The man doesn't announce those sort of things. He may announce plenty of other things, but not those kind of things. He kept Bono and pointed him toward Antonelli, something he had not done ever since Mercedes became a Formula One team again. He also structured a contract, which meant that, yes, George did have an option for 2027, but it was something that really depended on being a certain points margin ahead of Antonelli, not being a certain points difference behind Antonelli. He also has left the Verstappen door open, although I really don't expect Max to actually walk through it anymore, or at least not in anything other than a GT car. And if it's not Max, then it could be somebody else to act as a foil or a training guide for the likes of Kimi Antonelli. If George does end up outside of that team in 2027 and he has to find work somewhere else, we might even find a situation where, and I'll really increase the aperture here, we might see if Lewis Hamilton is disenfranchised for Ferrari, he goes back to Mercedes for one more year to maybe hope for an eighth world title, or at least try and rebuild his reputation in one of the fastest cars on the grid, just next to Antonelli. I mean, that is really, really farcical, but the driver market for this year could be absolutely bonkers. It might be really, really boring. We don't know. I just thought I'd throw my two penneth in there. If it's not the Sapan, they could be Hamilton, or it could be somebody else. It could be Carlos. It could be Alex. It could be anyone who's vaguely Mercedes-coded. It's really, really crazy. It's just so vague. In any case, all of those decisions that I talked about happened before the Miami Grand Prix. So the question isn't whether Wolff is about to move on from George Russell, ladder folk. Truth is, we might have blinked and missed it, too embroiled in all of the regulations kerfuffle. But it's not because Russell isn't fast enough or that he's suddenly forgotten how to win or anything, or that luck has even permanently turned against him. But maybe simply that the Austrian, the last heavyweight political operator at the front of the sport, a dinosaur, may have already decided when Mercedes is headed the second half of the 2020s. And right now, it looks like they're really not building it around George, that if he does remain with that team, it is going to be on a year by year basis. So indeed, Canada is going to herald the next chapter of this story, and we will indeed see around Montreal, a curious George. And if you're curious about what to watch next after this video, you can head over to this one over here. I believe you'll enjoy it. See you over there.