Mercedes provides an explanation for the Hamilton team’s Suzuka orders.

According to Andrew Shovlin, director of Mercedes Trackside Engineering, the team gave Lewis Hamilton a late directive to give George Russell DRS in order to benefit the former.

By using an undercut at the final round of pit stops, Hamilton had managed to edge out Carlos Sainz and was now rapidly closing in on Russell, who had only pitted once.

Sainz, who was on much more recent tires, was also able to close up as a result of the time Hamilton spent behind his teammate, which led Hamilton to express relief over the team radio.

Russell suggested that it might be possible to invert the cars only on the final lap, but Mercedes eventually gave in and told Russell to let Hamilton through.

However, Hamilton was then told to slow down to help Russell with DRS in order to defend from Sainz, which proved fruitless as the Spaniard sped past and courted the sister Mercedes throughout the final laps.

Despite Hamilton saying after the race that the tactic “made no sense,” Shovlin explains that it was implemented to maintain Hamilton’s position relative to Sainz.

The live organization of the cars is quite difficult, according to Shovlin.
“It was more so when we saw how quickly Carlos was approaching behind them that we made the decision to switch them, as Lewis in the middle might have been in danger as well because he was [riding] on worn-out tires.
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“Maybe it could have gone better, but the fact is we were trying to protect against Lewis losing that position as well, as he was the one who was most likely to finish ahead of Carlos.
” .

The two Mercedes cars engaged in a fierce battle for position twice during the opening laps of the race in Suzuka.

First, on Lap 5, Russell made a move up the inside of the last chicane and seemed to gain the upper hand until Hamilton made a move back up the inside into Turn 1.

As both cars ran wide, Russell was able to size up a move into Spoon Curve thanks to a mistake from Hamilton into Degner 2.
However, the more seasoned driver once again turned down his teammate’s advances.

With Mercedes choosing to divide their strategies, their fight would end there on an even playing field.
Russell tried to finish the race with just one pit stop completed, while Hamilton used the best two-stop strategy.

Shovlin responded, “No, not really.
The on-track battle didn’t really influence that decision.
Because, in terms of the team’s efforts, we’re trying to outperform Ferrari in a race like this.
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We started examining Ferrari’s situation once we realized we couldn’t compete with McLaren for the podium.
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“We were trying to make the best use of the two cars to give us those opportunities, and being able to get one of them was helpful damage control given that they both started the race before us.
” .

Hamilton shoved Russell out of the way, and Russell yelled over the team radio, “Who do we want to fight?
Each other, or the others?”.

However, Mercedes Communications Director Bradley Lord downplayed the contentious argument and said the team would discuss the matter in private.

He stated to Sky Sports F1 that “They raced each other hard, on a hard racers’ track.”. I believe that in the heat of the moment, it is always simple to read too much into those radio messages.

However, as always, we talk about it a little bit away from the pressure and the high temperatures of the cockpit here in Suzuka and in the engineering debrief afterwards.
I’m confident that’s where anything will get cleaned up that needs cleaning.
“.