Why Russell believes he would've won if Mercedes had listened to him
Red Bull Content Pool
F1 News
George Russell believes he would've won the Brazilian Grand Prix if Mercedes had listened to him during the race. The British driver wanted to stay out on track, but his race engineer called him to pit.
Russell would have preferred to stay out, but he was overruled by his race engineer. "It did [cost the win]. We're in this together as a team. Already taking P4 ahead of the weekend, we'll get over it. Sometimes it’s difficult to predict what's about to happen. Everybody’s doing their best and making the best calls with the information available," he said on Sky Sports.
"Normally when it's drying, it’s the team’s to say, ‘Let's go to slicks.’ When it's getting wetter, it's normally the driver's call to say, ‘Slicks to inters, or inters to wets.’ I was very confident it was going to go safety car or red flag because it was like driving a boat," he added.
Rolling start
On the restart, race control opted for a rolling start, much to Russell's dismay. Incidentally, the Mercedes driver was not the only driver surprised by this. "I was shocked to be honest. I couldn't keep my foot on the gas down the straight. The car was aquaplaning. Exceptionally dangerous for those couple of laps, but they like action I guess," concluded the two-time race winner.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton only scored one point and explained he was completely done with Mercedes.