Toto Wolff has batted off concerns that Mercedes favoured Lewis Hamilton at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix by not allowing team-mate George Russell to pass.

The Silver Arrows pitted Russell to take the fastest lap point for the team, but when he re-emerged from that mission successfully, Wolff refused to let him take the position from Hamilton.

“Lewis would’ve probably taken him anyway,” he told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “We are racing for P6 and P7 and wanted to keep Red Bull behind. It was a safety call.”

He later added: “I think taking the point for the fastest lap was a little goody. But the lap times were dropping off because we beat the team early, and there was the risk of losing the position a few laps later to Perez.

“Beating one of the Red Bulls in these circumstances was advantageous. And our tyre life at that moment, on lap 57, the tyres had gone and melted, and that’s why we made the call.”