Whilst the Formula One column inches were filled with cries over the race stewards decisions following this year’s USGP, something more sinister was at play in the Mercedes garage. Friday practice saw Russell and Hamilton sixth and seventh but come Sprint qualifying, George was flying.
His SQ3 final lap was a mere 12 one thousands of a second slower than Verstappen who claimed pole but meanwhile Lewis Hamilton was not having such a good time of it down in P7, over half a second off the time set by Russell.
Come the race on Saturday, Russell clearly did not have the pace of those around him and he slipped down through the order to finish fifth, ahead of his team mate Hamilton.
Hamilton offers Russell spare parts
Grand Prix qualifying was up next and the Mercedes duo had high hopes of a good starting position come Sunday. Lewis Hamilton struggled and failed to make it out of Q1 while George had an inexplicable crash towards the end of Q3. Mercedes were forced to break the curfew to repair the Russell car which immediately meant the Brit would start the Grand Prix from the pit lane.
Russell was mystified by the incident revealing Hamilton had offered him his spares for the latest Mercedes upgrade although the team took the decision not to act on Lewis’ proposal.
“We keep finding ourselves in this position and how the car is interacting with the tyres, the temperature, to small changes in the wind, but it has been the story of the season,” Russell explained in the media pen.
“With old upgrades or new upgrades, either we are there or we’re half a second, six-tenths off.”
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Mercedes car unstable
Come the start of the Grand Prix it became apparent that Mercedes had decided against making changes to Hamilton’s car given the seven times world champion took his place on the grid and was not starting from the pit lane. After lap one Hamilton had made significant progress and found himself up to twelfth from his starting position of of seventeenth.
Then at the same point on the COTA track as where Russell had his off a day earlier, Hamilton flew into the gravel in a remarkable copy cat crash. Lewis described the moments after lights out saying, “The best start, really, in Turn 1 that I’ve had in a long time. I wasn’t even pushing at that point, I was literally just trying to get the… starting to get going, obviously, trying to bring the tyres up to temperature.
“The car started bouncing. The left front started bouncing, and the rear end just came around, the same as George yesterday,” concluded a downbeat Lewis Hamilton.
Team boss Toto Wolff revealed Lewis had apologised to the team for the crash but also that he was driving well within himself and not on the limit. He admitted the Mercedes engineers were puzzled by the incident particularly as the silver arrows were “by far the fastest on Friday.”
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Wolff indicates Hamilton trusts old spec car more
Russell will revert to an old specification floor this weekend in Mexico due to a lack of spare parts for the upgrade Mercedes took to Austin, Texas. “The new floor will only be back from the factory in Brazil,” said Wolff. “We have the full package for Lewis, but I’m not sure whether he wants to use it again.”
Hamilton refusing the upgrade is clearly down to his lack of confidence in the car following his big shunt in the USA. Meanwhile ex-F1 racer Jacque Villeneuve calls into question the mental state of the former world champion who is on his way to Ferrari next year.
The 1997 F1 world champion tells CanadaCasino.ca, “I don’t think Lewis is thinking about Ferrari. He is thinking about himself and how awful it is going for him. That was the first time he has actually gone off in a race [this year]. He really is not in a good place. That is not helping his driving. He needs to get out of that mindset before he goes to Ferrari,” Villeneuve muses.
Lewis is not having the worst of seasons and in fact broke his 54 race win drought at his home Gran Prix in Silverstone. He leads his team mate in the driver standings, although Hamilton benefitted from a 32 point swing in his favour when Russell was disqualified after winning the Belgian Grand Prix.
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Hamilton’s recent shock collapse in form
But since winning before the summer break, Lewis has been out of sorts. His retirement in the US came on the back of Lewis trailing home some 80 seconds behind the race winner in Singapore and a week previous Lewis could only manage P9 in Baku having spent much of the race battling with Williams and Haas rookie drivers.
In fact but for the penultimate lap crash between Perez and Sainz, Hamilton would have finished outside the points in the Azerbaijan GP. Villeneuve expresses surprise that Lewis has not returned refreshed from the new F1 autumn break.
“It is tough when you have so many races back to back. You don’t really have time to change, but he’s just had three weeks off, and he didn’t come back any better. I have no idea what is going on in his head, but he will be happy that Ferrari is a better car than Mercedes. He is going to a better car, and in that aspect, he has to be happy,” said the Canadian.
“He is not the killer winner”
The former Williams driver calls out Hamilton’s demeanour as lacking the body language of a race winner adding, “He is not the killer winner we have seen in the past. He needs to get back to his old form and attitude before he moves because Ferrari is not an easy team to be in.” Villeneuve concluded.
Hamilton once lauded the master of the one lap in qualifying is currently 14-5 down to his team mate George Russell and in Sprint qualifying the younger manias the edge too at 3-1.
With Max Verstappen winning five of the last six races held in Mexico, Mercedes go into the coming weekend on the back foot already. Russel has clawed his way back to be within ten points of his team mate and a continuation of Hamilton’s form could see George moved ahead of Lewis in the drivers’ title race before the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia Paulo.
FIA refuses to publish their driving standards guidelines
‘Transparency’ is currently a word in vogue in Formula One with Zak Brown recently calling for the FIA to intervene in the Red Bull “inappropriate behaviour” investigation into team boss Christian Horner. The McLaren CEO’s appeal to the FIA followed a statement from Red Bull GmbH which dismissed out of hand the allegations and claimed the investigation had been “fair, rigorous and impartial”and stated further details would not be released “out of respect for all concerned.”
Never one to be left out of handing Red Bull a good kicking, Toto Wolff joined the chorus stating: “I simply think as a sport, we cannot afford to leave things in the vague and in the opaque on critical topics like this, because this is going to catch us out.”
Last weekend at the USGP, fans of the sport were left bemused by the F1 race stewards decisions over track limits which appeared to differ when applied to Yuki Tsunoda, George Russell and Lando Norris. Now TJ13 can reveal the FIA have a secret publication which provides guidelines on how the stewards should interpret the regulations over driving standards… READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
