Both Mercedes drivers endured a tough and at times ‘frustrating’ Grand Prix in Singapore, with George Russell finishing fourth and Lewis Hamilton sixth.
After a strong qualifying session in which they locked out the second row of the grid, the race simply didn’t go to plan for the Silver Arrows.
They were the only team to split strategies, with Russell starting the race on his preferred medium tyres and Hamilton going for the softs.
But the strategy soon backfired as Hamilton was unable to use them off the line to get ahead of Max Verstappen or Lando Norris, who were ahead of him.
Instead he was forced to pit earlier than he would have like to fit hards. He had arguably also held his team mate up in the opening stint, an unwanted side effect of those split strategies.
Hamilton’s race after the pit stop depended on where he could recover and hold onto his tyres until the finish, where he was eventually overtaken by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and ultimately finished in sixth place.
Russell, meanwhile, narrowly held off Leclerc on the final lap to finish at the starting line. After a very difficult Friday, we will probably bring P4 to the Grand Prix, “said Russell. “Our qualification pace, however, made us believe that we can achieve more.
Today, there was definitely a physically difficult race, as in the viewpoint of our rhythm.
“McLurence is very impressive, in another league for us, Max [FERSSTAPN] had our feet. We managed to hold off Charles’ Ferrari in the final moments so it was a damage-limited night. Given the pace of the car, it was the best we could achieve.
Russell was visibly exhausted after a difficult and gruelling race, and described his cockpit as a “sauna” during the night. The race was complicated by the absence of a safety car for the first time in Singapore’s history, which denied the drivers any respite for 62 laps and clearly hurt the Briton in his efforts to prevent Ferrari’s advance in the closing stages of the race.
Hamilton was also exhausted from a race in which he had to struggle in the middle of the field after making an earlier-than-ideal pit stop to clear soft tyres, with only Daniel Ricciardo attempting an alternative strategy that was unfavourable for RB.
“It’s hard to describe the range of emotions we feel when we go through such a difficult race,” Hamilton said. “This year continues to be a challenge for everyone but we are all doing our best and we don’t always get it right but that was our strategy today.
“We lost a bit of form against the leaders in the last few races and we are working hard to understand why.”
After winning three of the last four races before the summer break, Mercedes have only had one podium in the four races since the season resumed – and that was a happy coincidence, with Russell holding on to the podium in Baku thanks to a late-race collision between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz.
The good news for the team is that improvements are on the cards for Austin, but for now, after another disappointing race, it is small consolation after what team principal Toto Wolff described as a “painful” night in Singapore.