Mercedes have revealed an issue with George Russell’s entrance wing compromised his efficiency within the Mexican Grand Prix.
The crew imagine he sustained harm to his automobile on a bump early in his second stint.
“George was hindered when the entrance wing flap collapsed after he hit a bump throughout an overtake initially of the second stint,” Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin defined. “Regardless of that, he nonetheless maintained adequate tempo to carry it residence in fifth.”
Having fallen behind Lewis Hamilton initially, Russell handed him early within the race. However he fell again into his crew mate’s clutches when he misplaced tempo within the second stint.
“We let the drivers race one another all through,” mentioned Shovlin, “that meant that Lewis’ tyres have been previous their greatest as soon as he made it into clear air.”
Russell mentioned he had to deal with the lack of front-end grip for greater than half the race.
“The primary stint I used to be actually fairly pleased with,” he informed the official F1 channel. “The tempo was fairly robust and as soon as I managed to get again previous Lewis, I used to be holding tempo with Lando [Norris] and Max [Verstappen].
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“Then as quickly as I got here out of the pits, I hit some kind of bump down the primary straight and the left-hand aspect of the entrance wing simply collapsed. That’s after I was overtaking Oscar [Piastri], I feel it was.
“In order that I actually compromised [me], 40 laps I needed to do like that. However nonetheless P4 and P5, as a crew most likely we might have taken that after Friday.”
Hamilton mentioned he put himself at an obstacle by operating too little entrance wing angle. “It wasn’t wanting so racy within the first stint, which is a bit irritating,” he mentioned.
“I had taken an excessive amount of entrance wing out of the automobile and had a lot understeer. When you begin, that’s it, you’re caught with it. If I hadn’t had that, then I feel we might had a a lot better race.
“However anyway, I nonetheless would have completed fourth. So anyway I’m pleased with the second stint, had some good battles coming again.”
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