Russell received generous offer from Hamilton: 'We're not going to do that'
Mercedes Media
F1 News
Lewis Hamilton has made a generous offer to his teammate George Russell, after the two-time Grand Prix winner crashed out in Q3. The seven-time world champion was willing to give his updated parts to the Briton, but he declined the offer.
For Mercedes, qualifying was not as successful as sprint qualifying promised it to be. The team could enter the session positively given Russell finished second in Friday's session and Hamilton was also on a great lap until Franco Colapinto span ahead of him. In the end, Hamilton finished in P19 and will possibly start from the pit lane, while Russell crashed into the barrier in Q3.
Russell turns down offer from Hamilton
What makes it worse for Mercedes is that the Germans have no spares of the updated package to repair Russell's car. Since Hamilton already has a tough task ahead of him, he made a selfless offer. "I mean, Lewis has already kindly offered me his parts, but we’re not going to do that," Russell told Sky Sports.
"It’s a real shame. Everyone back at base deserves better, but we’re all pushing the limits here to try and get the car on the front row and fight for some big results," the 26-year-old Briton continued.
Given Friday's results, Russell also struggled early on in Q1, but he saw the lap time was there in the final session of the day "[Friday] we had a car, both Lewis and I fighting for pole position. [Saturday] we were both almost out in Q1 and then I was six-tenths away from pole at the start of Q3. I was on a really strong lap. I was five-tenths up at one point, but then it went away from me in Sector 3 and then obviously I had the crash."
"I was really disappointed because the team have worked so hard to bring these upgrades to the car. And I was just trying too hard to find something that, in all honesty, wasn’t there and paid the price. Really quite upset with how that’s ended," Russell concluded at the Circuit of the Americas.
This article was written in collaboration with Nicole Mulder
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!