Mercedes explain why they didn’t tell Russell to let Hamilton past in Jeddah · RaceFans

Mercedes say they did not intervene in the fight between their drivers for fourth place in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because they did not believe it would improve their result.

George Russell was heard urging the team not to impose orders on its cars when Lewis Hamilton closed within striking range of him following the Safety Car period in last Sunday’s race. Hamilton was on a softer set of tyres at the time.

Mercedes did not tell Russell to let his team mate past and Hamilton did not request a change of positions. After several laps of pursuing his team mate closely, Hamilton dropped back, and eventually finished 5.199 seconds behind him.

Mike Elliott, the team’s technical director, said Mercedes reasoned Hamilton would only temporarily be quicker than Russell and so decided not to swap the running order.

“First of all you’ve got to bear in mind that the Safety Car was pretty early so it was going to be a very long final stint,” he explained in a video released by the team. “Although Lewis came out on the faster tyre theoretically, the medium, by the end of the stint the hard tyre was going to be a much quicker tyre.

“So although Lewis could put pressure on George initially he wasn’t going to be able to do that at the end of the stint and so there probably wasn’t a clear [picture of] which tyre is faster or slower if you look at the full stint length.”

Elliott said the team prefer to avoid issuing orders when possible. “We’ve always let our drivers race. That’s just the way we have operated as a team and we didn’t think we were going to be in a position where favouring one driver over the other would get us in a better position in the race. So we just let them race.”

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Hamilton and Russell’s radio messages from laps 28-36

Lap: 28/50
Bonnington	So we’ve lost some of our timing tools, will be back online soon.
Lap: 29/50
Hamilton	[Unclear] tyres or not?
Bonnington	So it’s half the deg with the model. So they are much more resilient. So expect them to go the distance.
Lap: 30/50
		Musconi	Can we have green position two. Car behind is Lewis, 1.1.
Lap: 31/50
Bonnington	Can we have HPP seven position six, seven position six when you can.	Musconi	Gap one second.
		Russell	Is Lewis going to the end?
		Musconi	Affirm, on the medium tyre. Currently seeing L6.
Lap: 32/50
Bonnington	And good improvement turns one, two and four. Just need to work on 16 and 17 now.	Musconi	Gap one second.
Bonnington	Think about B-bal turn one.	Russell	Does he have DRS or not?
		Musconi	Affirm.
		Russell	You need to give me this information sooner.
		Musconi	Yeah, affirm, we’ve got issues with the system, but yeah. He has DRS again.

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Lap: 33/50
Bonnington	And wear was very low on last set.	Musconi	So gap behind 0.5, can drop the lift-and-coast at 13 now.
		Musconi	So this tyre is going to be very durable, so we’re happy to lean on it more.
		Musconi	0.7.
		Musconi	Gap 0.5. Got Albon going slow turn 14.
		Russell	Alonso has a five-second penalty here. Let’s fight later and let’s manage the tyres a little bit now…
		Musconi	Alonso has served his penalty at the stop.
		Russell	Ah, again info I need
Lap: 34/50
Bonnington	Just stay on the de-rate where you can.	Musconi	So gap behind 0.7.
Bonnington	Focus on turn 27 exit. Also 16, 17.	Musconi	Gap. 0.8. Currently seeing L5.
		Musconi	Gap 0.6
Lap: 35/50
Hamilton	The de-rate button’s not working.	Musconi	Gap 0.9.
		Musconi	Gap one second.
		Russell	Let me know about DRS
		Musconi	No DRS.
Lap: 36/50
Bonnington	We’re just looking at it.
Bonnington	And so we do see the de-rate button working.

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2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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