Mercedes returned to the podium in the form of George Russell at the Formula 1 race in Canada. And this was by no means a lucky coincidence, but was the result of a strong pace throughout the entire weekend in Montreal. After the end of the race, Russell was happy about his team’s regained pace. But his joy was clouded.
“It feels like a missed opportunity, to be honest,” he said angrily in a TV interview after the Grand Prix. The Mercedes drivers were the only ones to use the last safety car phase to change tires. They were thus on the advance all the way to the finish and were the fastest cars on the track.
George Russell annoyed about Piastri duel: Cost at least P2
But in total, more than one position was not possible. Russell takes responsibility for this himself. Because in his duel with He lost a lot of time to Oscar Piastri and even lost a position at one point. One moment in particular bothers him: “The mistake when I tried to overtake Oscar and lost position to Lewis. That cost us at least P2, maybe we could have even fought for victory with Max later in the race.”
The numbers at least prove him right with regard to Norris. At the end of the race, Russell crossed the finish line just four tenths behind the McLaren driver. Without the time lost when he rode into the run-off area after the attack on Piastri, combined with the subsequent internal Mercedes duel, he would certainly have been able to attack Norris a few laps earlier and, given the tyre delta, probably overtake him.
It cannot be said with any certainty whether the pole-setter would have been able to make up the four seconds that Verstappen was still behind at the end of the race. On his last lap, Russell was about seven tenths of a second faster than the Red Bull driver.
Wrong Mercedes strategy? Russell: Switched to medium too late
But in his opinion, the team may have missed a chance to win earlier. Namely, when changing to dry tires for the first time. Mercedes put on the hard tires. So Russell was able to catch up again in the last stint with the medium tires, but had lost time and positions in the previous stint.
“They were on the mediums, I was on the hards. Otherwise we would probably have been in a strong position to fight,” explained Russell. But he also made a mistake in this part of the race. Two laps after he had overtaken Lando Norris thanks to better warmed-up tires, Russell slid off the track at Turn 8 and lost P2.
“It was a tricky race for everyone. If you were just a millimetre off the line, you were already off the track,” Russell said, excusing this faux pas. “I simply made one mistake too many at a key moment in the race. That cost us the chance to finish with the first two [Norris & Verstappen] to fight at the end of the race,” Russell summed up his anger.
Nevertheless, he did not want to let this missed opportunity to win spoil his mood too much. Because the Canadian GP proved that Mercedes can also fight at the top in the 2024 Formula 1 season. Russell said: “I am happy with the progress we have made and I am proud of the team for being able to push through these upgrades. It is really paying off now.”
George Russell was not the only Mercedes driver who had some complaints about the Mercedes strategy. Lewis Hamilton also voiced criticism: