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Is the opening-lap shunt between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell a cause for concern at Mercedes?
Was Sunday’s opening-lap collision between Mercedes teammates George Russell and Lewis Hamilton a one-off event, or signs of something more troubling for the Formula 1 team?
At least one F1 pundit believes it is the latter.
Shortly after the start of the Qatar Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton, who started third, tried to get around teammate George Russell on an outside line. But with Russell trying to execute a pass of his own on pole-sitter Max Verstappen, the three cars simply ran out of room, with the Mercedes duo coming together.
Both spun out, with Hamilton sliding into the gravel and out of the race. Suddenly, a day that began with Mercedes in fantastic position to put some distance between themselves and Ferrari in their battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship had turned into something much different.
Russell managed to salvage the race on his part, finishing fourth to allow Mercedes to slightly extend their current advantage over Ferrari. Still, in many ways it was a missed opportunity for Mercedes to press their lead over Ferrari, given that Carlos Sainz Jr. did not start the Qatar Grand Prix due to a fuel leak.
The main contributing factor in the early-race shunt might have been the tyre mandate from F1, which placed an 18-lap maximum on each tyre compound in the race. That forced teams to try different tyre strategies, and with respect to Mercedes Hamilton began the race on the soft compound, while Russell began the race on mediums.
As we saw in Saturday’s F1 Sprint race, the soft compounds were lightning-quick at the start, but wore down quickly over time. That enabled Hamilton to get a fast start off the line and put the pressure on, but the move backfired.
Following the race, the team indicated that in pre-race meetings, this very scenario was discussed. “I felt so disappointed for us both, because we spoke this morning, we knew we were going to work together, and we both said we both want to be standing on that podium, it doesn’t matter what order, we’re here for the team,” said Russell. “I know there was nothing intentional, both ways. I’m still glad we managed to finish ahead of Ferrari, get some more points on the board and we had a fast race car, so we’ll just take the positives.”
“We discussed it in the morning, so it was a scenario we’d been through, the different start tyre performance and things like that,” said Mercedes Communications Director Bradley Lord. “I think in the moment they just all ran out of space. George obviously had nowhere to go and Lewis was trying to take his line. Unfortunately these things can happen and you can’t program everything even with a discussion beforehand. We’ll talk about it afterwards as we do, go through it and learn what we can to hopefully have it never happen again.”
Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin also addressed the incident in the team’s debrief, calling it “simply a mistake.”
Hamilton ultimately took full responsibility for the incident.
So, matter closed?
Not so fast says Peter Windsor
The F1 journalist noted during his post-race breakdown that this incident is signs of a deeper issue, one that goes back to the selection of Russell to begin with.
“It’s a much deeper thing, this comes right back to the choice of George Russell as the other driver in the Mercedes,” said Windsor.
“Because in this situation, when you’ve got Lewis Hamilton, who’s never going to be anything other than the seven-times World Champion who wants to win a grand prix, if the car is capable of letting him win it, if you’ve got Lewis in that car, you definitely need to have somebody like a Valtteri Bottas or a Sergio Pérez in the other car,” added the F1 pundit.
Poor Pérez is taking incoming shots from all directions these days, but we digress.
“If you’re going to have them next to one another on the grid, which they were, P2 and P3, and you’re going to put one of them, i.e. the guy in P3, on soft tyres and the other guy on mediums, because what you would then need to do, what Lewis would need to do is before the race, they would need to say to the other driver, ‘Look, Lewis is on the soft tyre, he may well try something on the outside, so whatever you do, stay on the inside, and make sure that you two do not touch one another’.
“And you could have said that to a Valtteri, you could have said that to a Sergio Perez, you could say that to a Carlos Sainz probably, if he was in a Mercedes and Lewis was the other driver, but you can’t say it to a George Russell,” continued Windsor.
“George Russell is too much of a racer, he’s a proven winner already, there is absolutely no way in the world that George Russell would have accepted that,” added Windsor. “That accident was a straight result of choosing to have a driver, an aggressive fast racer like George Russell in the other car.”
Windsor wound down his discussion with an ominous prediction for Mercedes fans.
“I’m not saying you want a number two who’s slow. I’m just saying you need a driver who is compliant and can work with the star driver you’ve got. Whether it’s Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, George Russell, a star in his own right, Oscar Piastri for sure, Charles Leclerc.
“And that’s the problem, you don’t have that at Mercedes, it’s an absolute gunfight and we saw that today. And it won’t be the last time that sort of thing will happen either,” concluded Windsor.
This is now the challenge facing Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff: Balancing these two driver racers and their interests with the shared team goal of fending off Ferrari to finish second in the Constructors’ Championship.
Thankfully with Mercedes fans, Wolff does have some experience in this regard. During the 2016 season Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg were not only battling to keep Mercedes atop the Constructors’ table, they were in a fight for the Drivers’ Championship.
Rosberg ultimately won that fight, but then stepped away from the sport following that campaign, opening the door for Bottas to slid into the seat next to Hamilton. He occupied that spot alongside Hamilton for five seasons, helping the team to five more Constructors’ titles, before giving way to Russell for the 2022 campaign.
Mercedes fans are hoping Wolff can land this plane, and that Windsor’s dire prediction does not come true.
