Mercedes Formula 1 technical director James Allison has officially denied growing claims of ‘favouritism’ within the Brackley-based team.
The Silver Arrows have been the team to beat in 2026. Most of the field has struggled to match the pace of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, but the pair have continued to show why they should be champions in 2026.
Whilst many believed Russell would lead the championship early, a run of reliability issues sees him in third. Russell is now a distant 50 points away from his inexperienced teammate, who sits on top of the standings.
Importantly, Mercedes has allowed both drivers to race freely so far this season. Opting not to employ team orders, similar to McLaren’s infamous “Papaya Rules” seen last season. Despite this, fans online have been quick to speculate that Mercedes is favouring Antonelli as the championship battle develops.
Social media speculation began as fans noticed varying reactions from Team Principal Toto Wolff.
Clips and screenshots often showed the Austrian celebrating Antonelli’s successes or appearing visibly frustrated by the teenager’s setbacks. However, many of these examples lacked the wider context of similar reactions to Russell’s achievements and misfortunes.
However, Mercedes technical director James Allison has firmly rejected those claims. The Briton insists that the idea of favouritism is completely foreign within an F1 team.
“I doubt very much whether it will shut anything down once and for all!” Allison said when asked whether he could silence the speculation.
“Because people are very invested in the people that they support, and they want their driver to prosper above all others.
All I can say is, if you ever wanted that feeling of favouritism… to understand where it sits on our psyche, you’d need to come and work in a team, because, if you were lucky enough to come and work in a team, you would instantly be imbued with the culture of that team.
You would understand how utterly alien that thought is to anyone in a team, and, when we hear it, it’s like we’re hearing another language; it’s an argument you can never win, because both sides of it are just completely divorced from one another, because it is in all of our interests that both our drivers prosper.”
Mercedes focused F1 Constructors’ Championship
Doubling down on his comments, Allison stressed that Mercedes’ priority is simple: maximise points. The team wants both Russell and Antonelli performing at their best to strengthen its Constructors’ Championship challenge.
“Actually, we’re ambivalent about which one is better than the other. We want a 1-2 in every race, and we don’t care about the order,” Allison clarified.
The Briton highlighted that any form of favouritism this early in the season would be counterproductive.
“Because that’s our main championship,” Allison highlighted.
“Weirdly, it is not the Drivers’ Championship, it’s the Constructors’ Championship. If we’re lucky enough to win a bonus, we win it on the basis of the Constructors’ position, not the Drivers’ – we don’t get anything for that.
So everything we care about is Constructors-oriented, and favouritism makes zero sense to us in that respect.”
Allison believes the only time Mercedes will ‘favourite’ one of their drivers is in a championship battle with another team. Even then, the engineer highlighted that it would only ever be a possibility if one driver can claim the title.
“The only point where we would start to have an opinion is if one driver is mathematically incapable now of winning a championship, and the other driver is in a fight with a third-party driver.
At that point, the team has a sort of right to an opinion, but, up until that point, we just want both our players to be right up there every single race.”
Mercedes could very well find themselves in an intense intra-team championship fight this season. But as Allison suggests, any thoughts of favouritism remain a long way from entering the equation.
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