George Russell revealed that he and Lewis Hamilton spoke before the Qatar GP about how they should start the race, and Russell’s desire to see them both on the podium quickly faded.
Russell shared the front row with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Hamilton started from P3, but on soft tires compared to the medium ones for Russell.
Hamilton took advantage of this grip to glance at the outside of his teammate at Turn 1, but the results were disastrous when they made contact, sending Hamilton spinning on the gravel.
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton talk about their pre-race starting strategy
Hamilton has since accepted full responsibility for the incident, dashing Russell’s hopes of both drivers on the podium, an ambition he and Hamilton had discussed before the race.
Russell told Sky F1: “We talked about it and from our side, this morning I said: ‘I just want both of us to be on that podium’. “My goal now is to try to get P2 for the team. And even I agree, we talked about the possibility of Lewis going into Turn 1. Like I said, it’s just a very, very difficult situation.
Russell was able to continue and regain P4, Hamilton also mentioned this pre-race discussion.
Of course, their Qatar GP didn’t go as planned and Hamilton felt sad for his role in it.
Hamilton told the media after the race: “Before the race, George, we knew we had different tyres, so he told us ‘let’s work together today’, so we just talked about working together.” “And again, it wasn’t our plan to get together, it was really frustrating for the team. We have all worked so hard to get to this position and it’s sad that everyone is a part of it.
Mercedes head of communications Bradley Lord said although the start time had been discussed between drivers before the race, they were “still unable to arrange everything” to take place as planned. plan, with the aim now being to ensure that lessons are learned from this situation. doesn’t happen again.
We discussed it in the morning, so it’s a situation that we’ve been through and obviously the different performance of the starting tires and things like that,” Lord told Sky F1.
“And then I think at that point they were all booked out. George clearly had nowhere to go, Lewis was trying to hold his own and we saw what happened. “Unfortunately, these things can happen and you can’t schedule everything, even if discussed in advance.
“But we will talk about it after it happens, look at it and learn what we can so that hopefully this never happens again.”
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