Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff believes his squad might have cost itself Barcelona Grand Prix victory by allowing George Russell and Kimi Antonelli to race each other in the manner they did.

Mercedes' first Sunday defeat of the 2026 F1 season was effectively assured when the timing of a virtual safety car to retrieve Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin allowed Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton to make his final pitstop without losing the lead.

Just before that, Russell - on fresh tyres after making his own last stop - had been cutting Hamilton's lead and was on course to reclaim first place when the three-stopping Ferrari came in again.

Though Hamilton would then have had a tyre advantage for the closing laps, he would have probably rejoined third behind the Mercedes of both Russell and Antonelli.

Wolff suggested in both TV interviews and his written media session after the race that his cars could have been closer to Hamilton at that crucial VSC point had they not lost time racing each other around half-distance when Antonelli caught then-leader Russell, who successfully defended his position amid multiple attacks from his team-mate.

"We tried to race fair in the team game," Wolff told Sky. "But maybe it cost us the win.

"And that's something which we need to discuss with the drivers. How are we doing it if we're fighting somebody else for a race win?

"They raced each other quite hard before George's stop. And I think we lost about four or five or six seconds to Lewis. We're leaving that time on the track. And we need to discuss it with them for the future."

Wolff specified that he was not talking about introducing team orders as a broad concept, more that whether intra-team battling should be better managed when Mercedes is racing a rival from another team - particularly on a different strategy.

"We didn't interfere in them fighting because that's how we've always raced," he added.

"But it's a situation we need to look into for the future with both drivers: how to handle a situation where there's a pace differential, if we are fighting for a victory and at the risk of losing a victory.

"That's going to be an interesting discussion. But always totally transparent to the best interest of the team."

During the six laps when Russell and Antonelli were closest at the front, Hamilton reduced his deficit to the Mercedes from 18 seconds to 7.6s - albeit running tyres 15 laps newer than Russell's.

Russell had then got Hamilton's lead down to 16s just before the VSC, with Hamilton losing 13s of that gap when he pitted from the lead.

For his part, Russell - who did lose second to Antonelli on-track in the final stint, only to regain it when Antonelli ground to a halt and retired - played down how much time he and Antonelli had lost mid-race.

"It did cost us a little bit, but I think Lewis with the VSC was always destined to come out ahead, to be honest," he said.

"We probably lost a second, but he just had really great pace.

"It was really impressive to see, and even in the first stint, at one point, I was expecting to see Kimi make the move on Lewis, and I was watching the TV screens, and Lewis just seemed to have it covered."