Mercedes chief responds as Russell talks over ‘worst decision ever’

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Mercedes’ track engineering director Andrew Shovlin has explained the reasons behind their decision to pit Lewis Hamilton and George Russell at the same time during the Japanese Grand Prix, which left the latter demanding talks with his team. Russell vented his frustration on the radio after being held up in the pits, costing him positions as the Briton came home in eighth place behind Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

A heavy downpour before the race on Sunday forced teams to switch to the wet-weather tyres with a rolling start under the safety car. Mercedes tried to save time by double-stacking their drivers in the pits, bringing in Hamilton first to change for intermediate tyres.

That left Russell waiting behind his team-mate, losing precious seconds before he was finally able to change his tyres. As a result, the 24-year-old lost eight places and emerged back onto the track in 14th position.

Russell vented his anger over the team radio, calling it “the worst decision ever made” and Shovlin, one of the leading figures the team in Suzuka in the absence of team principal Toto Wolff, admitted they could have done things differently but chose to prioritise Hamilton after getting stuck behind Esteban Ocon.

“There was only really the one decision point to make the in race which was when to come in for inters,” Shovlin added. “It looked like the optimum would have been to follow the Safety Car in when we restarted which was surprising given the amount of water on the track.

“We’d called to bring both in together and that cost us a bit of time in the stops for George with the stacking; he’d have joined a couple of places further up if we’d waited a lap which would have given him a better chance of being part of the race that Lewis was having with Esteban.

“Saying that, Lewis was having a frustrating time trying to get through. He had good pace and we’d opted for a high downforce level expecting rain, but he just couldn’t find a way past due to the straight-line speed.”

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Despite cooling off after the chequered flag, Russell stood by his comments before demanding an explanation from the team in their post-race debrief, insisting he could have challenged Hamilton for fifth place.

“We need to review what went on,” said Russell. “I was right behind Lewis and double stacking, I was just going to lose all the positions. There’s not really much more to say, very frustrating afternoon. I probably could have fought for P5.

“It was quite enjoyable out there, I made some good overtakes but we need to sit down with the team and see what we could have done better. That was probably, at the time, not the right thing to do.”

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