Bottas beat Mercedes teammate Hamilton by just 0.096s to top qualifying at the Italian Grande Prix and secure a front-ofꦕ-the-grid start for F1’s second-ever sprint race on Saturday.

Hamilton trails Red Bull’s Max Verst♛appen by three points in title race and the championship lea🍃der will start the sprint race from third on the grid.

Bottas faces a back-of-the-grid start for Sunday’s Italian GP after taking his fourth power unit of the season ♌in a “strategic” move before qualifying.

“It’s difficult generally when you have to call team orders,” Wol🅺ff told Sky Sports when asked what Mercedes’ plan is for the race. “All of us are racers and𒊎 we don’t want to see that.

“He [Bottas] should be where he is on ꦍmerit. But in any case, Valtteri is going anyway all the way to the back on Sunday.

“So we n🌱eed to see how the start pans out because there is not too much to discuss, just be careful in the first corner and then see where they are.”

When suggested to him that Mercedes would presumably swap Bottas and Hamilton around i🐓f they remain iꩲn that order and have a gap to Verstappen, Wolff replied: “Yeah presumably.”

Bottas, who will lose his Mercedes seat to George Russell next year, was fastꦑest in qualifying for only the second time this season.

Mercedes has enjoyed a performance advantage over Red Bull at Monza ⭕throughout the V6 hybrid era and that form continued on Friday.

But Wolff dismissed the notion that Mercedes can be considered clear favourites in Italy and at the next ra🌳ce in Russia.

“I think that kind of nostalgic reflection, which tracks suit which car, is not true an🗹ymore this year because we’ve been pretty strong in Hungary,” he said.

“We should have been strong in Holland, but we were lacking pace in two cars a🍰nd that made all the d😼ifference. So I am not judging it, how we will do.”