Wolff pledges openness if Mercedes ever favours one driver

If Mercedes ever chooses to favour one driver, Toto Wolff says, he would explain the decision openly to George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. The team principal traced that approach to a conversation with Alain Prost about uncertainty over favouritism at McLaren.

Wolff recalled asking Prost, while Wolff was early in his own Formula 1 career at Williams, how Prost’s relationship with Ayrton Senna had deteriorated. Prost told him, Wolff said, that a driver could not know whether the team favoured him; at different times, Prost felt that he was the favoured driver, then that Senna was. Wolff said Prost linked that uncertainty to mistrust and the fear that a rival might be given an advantage.

Wolff says that experience informs his approach at Mercedes: drivers should feel secure within an open and balanced team. If a driver disagrees with a future team decision, he says, it should be discussed openly.