Mercedes: 'That's why it looked like Hamilton had to celebrate alone'

The final stage of the Singapore Grand Prix was nasty for Mercedes. The team had sight of a win, but in the end a hard crash by George Russell left only a P3 for Lewis Hamilton. James Allison says he was happy with Russell anyway and explains why Hamilton seemed to be celebrating his podium alone.

Russell's crash and Hamilton's 'lonely' podium celebration were related. Hamilton seemed to stand motherly alone among Ferrari's celebrations after the race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. Although not many Mercedes team members were present at the podium interviews, Hamilton was apparently not alone after all.

Technical director, Allison explained: "Of course the team was there at the podium to celebrate with Lewis. As many of the team as it was practical to get to the podium were there because we enjoy it. We love standing there and clapping and cheering for our driver.Necessarily a certain amount of the team had to stay in the garage during that event because we needed to receive George’s car back from the marshals who were bringing it back into the pit lane."

Allison thinks the Mercedes team members could not be seen because the direction was entirely focused on the celebratory mood at Ferrari. After all, that team managed to break the 2023 Red Bull Racing winning streak. "There was a very significant number of all teams down there at the podium ceremony, we were a big part of it but not maybe where the camera lighted during the podium celebrations. " he said.

On Russell's crash, Allison says the driver was inconsolable after the race. Allison: "However, it is a testament to his character to the strength of his character that instead of crawling into a little hole and suffering in silence notwithstanding the fact that he was that upset he came out he spoke to every single person on the team at the track, apologised to them in person for his mistake and owned it properly"