Jamie Chadwick warns George Russell Canada GP retirement may have saved Mercedes from fallout

Three-time W Series champion and Sky Sports Formula 1 pundit Jamie Chadwick believes George Russell's untimely retirement from the Canadian Grand Prix likely saved Mercedes from bitter intra-team fallout.

Russell and his team-mate Kimi Antonelli had been battling for the lead for 30 laps before the Briton was forced to retire from the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. 

Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Show, Chadwick suggested the wheel-to-wheel action was on the verge of crossing the line. 

"I would have been interested to see if it got to the line," she explained. "I think they were a few laps away from that ending in tears. So, I don't know if George's engine failure came at a good time for Mercedes in terms of intra-team politics.

"But in terms of the battle we saw on track, I think we were going to expect that given what we saw in a sprint race. With the new regulations, the way that they can follow closely and can't really get away from each other, I think Kimi got a little bit of a gap, but then made the mistake into Turn 10, just means they're constantly fighting each other.

"And this track in itself doesn't make it easy to make passes. So whenever Kimi was going for it, he was having to get pretty close to his team-mate George. I have not seen racing like that. We saw it a bit with the Ferraris, but for the lead of the race, in a long time."

Arriving in Canada on the back of three consecutive grand prix victories, and claiming his fourth in Montreal, Antonelli has firmly established himself as the man to beat. Despite downplaying his title ambitions in the media, Chadwick argued that his driving shows a different mindset.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

"I feel like George pulled it out when he needed to in those last laps of SQ3 and Q3. But the whole weekend, to be honest, Kimi was looking, to me, slightly stronger and particularly in the race. I think it would have been interesting if he hadn't made that mistake in Turn 10. Could he have got his head down, got gone? 

"I think the hot-headedness of Kimi is what's giving him that tenth of a second in a way, especially when he was behind George, and he was chasing him. You could see he had the bit between his teeth. He had that extra hunger, extra motivation to try to get on par with his team-mate. 

"And I think that tenth of a second, as you say, or that hunger, has come from the fact that he came off the back of winning three races. And his confidence has just grown. He keeps saying he's not thinking about the championship, but 100% he's now a championship leader with a big advantage. He's thinking of it as 'No, I don't care that I've got an experienced team-mate. I have every bit of right to be ahead of you today.' And that's how he's driving."