Nico Rosberg has come down on Mercedes’ side over the team order that cost George Russell second place at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Speaking on Sky Sports F1 after Sunday’s race, Rosberg said the call was justified because the two Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were closing on both silver cars in the closing laps.
“Here it’s the same situation, the team result was under threat by the two Ferraris behind, so you have to apply team orders, and they have to follow them, and I think it was fair play,” Rosberg said.
He also drew on his own experience of a controversial intra-Mercedes swap.
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“In my time also, I had to let Lewis past once in Monaco, even though we were fighting for the championship against each other.”
Where Rosberg used the word “disaster” was in describing the psychological blow to Russell, not the decision itself.
“It’s a tough one, it’s really a horrible decision to make. I would not want to be in their position. And if I was in George’s place, it would hurt so much. It would be a disaster.”
What happened on lap 65
The race at Zandvoort ran to a strange script. Max Verstappen lost control at the banked final corner at the end of the opening lap and crashed out, bringing out a red flag. Lando Norris eventually won for McLaren. Antonelli, running second, was on old tyres.
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When Esteban Ocon’s Haas stopped on track on lap 52 and triggered a virtual safety car, Mercedes pitted Antonelli for soft rubber. Russell stayed out. Once the sequence settled, Antonelli was on fresh tyres right behind his team-mate, with the Ferraris closing.
On lap 65, the team told Russell to let Antonelli through.
Wolff: ‘completely normal’
Toto Wolff defended the call after the race, framing it as basic strategy rather than championship politics.
“Obviously, team orders are always harsh,” Wolff told reporters.
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“We’re not losing time with each other if there’s competitors breathing down your neck. So completely normal, and we would have done it the other way around also.”
Russell: ‘Antonelli deserved P2’
Russell accepted the logic afterwards, pointing to a pre-existing team protocol on inverting positions when the two cars are running different strategies.
“We’ve always said as a team, when we’re on different strategies, we’re never going to fight and we’re always going to invert, and that’s always just been our sort of rules,” Russell said.
“Could I have kept him behind? Maybe. But equally, you know, it could have been a P5 as well. So, in the end, you know, he deserved to be P2.”
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The swap stretched Antonelli’s lead over Russell in the drivers’ standings to 59 points. The next race is the Italian Grand Prix at Monza from 4 to 6 September.
