Kimi Antonelli and George Russell’s intra-team fight will not degenerate into another Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg rivalry, as Toto Wolff is adamant he will “not allow it”.

Wolff knows all too well about the drama and the damage of an intra-team title fight.

Toto Wolff issues ‘not allow it’ Mercedes warning

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

The Mercedes team principal managed the escalation of that for four seasons as Hamilton and Rosberg fought for supremacy, and ultimately the world titles.

Hamilton beat Rosberg in 2013, the first year that the boyhood friends were teammates, before winning the world title in 2014 and ’15.

But as the rivalry intensified and the friendship waned, Rosberg fought back to claim the 2016 title amid a clash of wheels, the threat of sidelining them both, and a huge divide between the two sides of the Mercedes garage.

What started as a friendship ended in a bitter rivalry.

Wolff will not allow that to infect his team again.

Kimi Antonelli v George Russell: Mercedes F1 2026 scores

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

“I will not allow it,” he emphatically told RacingNews365. “That’s never going to happen to me again.

“That’s never going to happen to the team again. Simple.

“I’m just taking a driver out if he does that.”

This year’s championship could yet shape up to be Antonelli versus Russell for the title, although Mercedes’ reliability has hampered the Briton, who was the pre-season favourite.

While Antonelli was also undone by an engine problem at Barcelona and a broken wheel shield at Silverstone, Russell’s season has been blighted by several issues.

The Briton had a battery failure in Canada, a controversial penalty in Monaco, a crash that was the result of his battery running down to zero at Spa, and more recently anti-stall on the line in Hungary.

Midway through the season, Russell trails championship leader Antonelli by 69 points.

Wolff firmly believes the Briton can turn his season around when Formula 1 returns from the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix.

“George was in the lead in Montreal, and then he DNF’d,” Wolff said.

“So that could have been another win for him, and certainly it would have put him in a better frame of mind for the races to come.

“To be fair enough to him, we had an engine issue on his car, which took a long time to discover, [it was worth] two-tenths.

“And then, obviously, the pressure has built up for him because he’s come in as the clear favourite.

“Kimi had nine races without a point last year, then Kimi is very good this year. And suddenly, the kind of expectations change, and you’re a little bit on the back foot.

“If there is someone on the back foot that can manage that, it’s George, because he’s a hard guy.

“The best ones, they are able to turn things around. So I think he can, absolutely.”