Mercedes’ Head of Strategy claims George Russell’s tire strategy at Suzuka was a desperate act as they were ‘already behind everyone’
Mercedes' Strategy Head just explained why George Russell went on a different tire strategy at Suzuka than everybody else.
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Lewis Hamilton‘s podium win at the Singapore GP brought back Mercedes’s confidence after some subpar performances post the summer break. But his teammate George Russell had the worst luck as he DNF’ed while he was minutes away from crossing the finish line. The Mercedes racer once again walked into the Suzuka Circuit with renewed hopes of getting a podium at the Japanese GP, but he had some hard luck there too.
The Brit was way behind in the pack with a P8 start to his race after a tough Qualifying at Suzuka. Since the track hardly allows any overtaking, George Russell’s situation seemed dire. The youngster had just come out of a horrible misfortune at the Singapore GP that stole his podium, and he was starting the Japanese GP from eighth in the grid.
Thus, Mercedes tried to put all their cards on the table to help George win with tactics of not speed, as claimed by their Head of Race Strategy Rosie Wait. In a video for the team’s Mercedes Debrief series, which was previously hosted by James Vowles, Rosie explained the reason why George Russell went on a one-stop strategy at Suzuka.
Mercedes’ Rosie Wait says George Russell went all in at Suzuka since he had nothing to lose
Japan, being an Asian country, has quite a hot and humid climate which usually does not favor the Pirelli tires used by the F1 racers. Hence, a two-stop strategy seemed a necessity for the teams to get their drivers decent pace in the race. But George Russell was using a different strategy to most.
Explaining the reason behind this, Rosie Wait said, “Our focus strategically in that race was, how do we regain some track position? We knew the one-stop was unlikely to be faster than the two-stop but George had very little to lose. We were already behind everyone and so it was likely we could take a risk without any big downsides.”
On the other hand, Lewis Hamilton was also unimpressed with the Mercedes W14’s performance at the Japanese GP as he finished seventh in the rankings. He even urged his team to emulate McLaren as their new recruit Oscar Piastri got his first podium finish at Suzuka. It must not be forgotten that McLaren was Lewis Hamilton’s former team as the Briton won his first World Championship with them.
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Riddhi Mondal
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