Russell bites back at Hamilton as Mercedes duo arrive in Melbourne

George Russell joins Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes

George Russell has struck back after Lewis Hamilton claimed to have made the wrong ’50:50 choice’ over his car set-up at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. With Russell taking P4 ahead of Hamilton in fifth, the former Williams man put the decision down to hard work with his team of engineers rather than any element of good fortune.

The Silver Arrows enjoyed a slight improvement in Jeddah last time out by beating both Ferraris, although the same trio that made the podium in Bahrain – Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso – repeated the feat for the second race running. 

Russell showed greater pace than Hamilton throughout the weekend, forcing the seven-time world champion to admit that if he had opted for the youngster’s set-up, it would have given him a better chance of taking the fight to Red Bull and Aston Martin. 

“The strategy didn’t really work out for me,” he told Sky Sports F1 at the time. “The set-up was a bit off – I think if I had the set-up that George had, I would have been in a better position.

“There was like a 50:50 choice. I chose one way, he chose another. More often than not, the way he went was the wrong one, but it just happened to work, so I could only match his pace rather than be quicker.”

Russell bit back at the suggestion of a coin-flip situation, however, instead claiming that he ‘knew’ his set-up decision was superior to Hamilton’s due to hard work and deliberation with his team. “I don’t think there’s any luck in it at all,” he told reporters.

“I think it’s down to the preparation you put in before the event. The changes we made overnight [after practice], I knew that was going to be the right direction with the work we did with the team, and I believed it was going to be better than the set-up that Lewis opted for.

“I think everybody’s got different preferences. I was happy with the direction I took and the work I’m doing with the engineers.”

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