Steiner: “Antonelli is Wolff’s revenge for not having taken Verstappen”

Mercedes, how to manage Antonelli and Russell? The start of the season confirmed Mercedes’ hopes. At Brackley they knew they had designed a great car for the start of the 2026 regulations, and with three victories in the first three GPs Toto Wolff’s team has already taken off in the two world championship rankings. What they probably didn’t expect is the amazing performance of Kimi Antonelli, leader of the World Championship after the victories in China and Japan. From Miami onwards another page opens, that of the management at Mercedes between Antonelli and that George Russell who seems to have underestimated the internal challenge. A sweet problem for Wolff, very capable of trusting the Bolognese and assigning him the “keys” to the car driven for years by Lewis Hamilton. For many it was pure madness, now it’s the Austrian who’s laughing. And for Günther Steiner this bet is revenge on the Mercedes team principal for not having taken Max Verstappen for the post-Hamilton season. Steiner’s words “With Kimi, Toto still thinks back to when he failed to secure Verstappen and this is now a small revenge for him: he was thinking about getting the next superstar”, these are the words of the South Tyrolean to Drive to Wynn. “The management at Mercedes? Toto is above these things, he doesn’t favor one or the other. For him, the most important thing is that the team wins,” he added. “I don’t think he has to deal much with managing George, he can handle himself. And I think Toto treats them the same way, they are two boys who grew up in Mercedes.”