George Russell has revealed that he is set to speak with Mercedes after disagreeing with the strategy he was placed on for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Briton started the seventh round of the season from pole position and led the opening stages before eventual race winner Lewis Hamilton caused Mercedes a strategic headache.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hamilton started on the soft tyres and pitted early, committing to a three-stop strategy. It prompted the Silver Arrows to respond immediately by bringing Russell in on the following lap.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
However, when the seven-time world champion made his second stop, Mercedes did not react, leaving Russell vulnerable to Hamilton in the closing stages.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hamilton was set to have significantly fresher tyres than the King’s Lynn-born driver towards the end of the race, with Russell committed to a two-stop strategy. This gave the Ferrari driver a strong chance of reducing what would likely have been a 15-second deficit.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
In the end, Hamilton did not need to hunt Russell down. Shortly after both Mercedes drivers had made their second stops, a virtual safety car allowed the Ferrari driver to make his third pit stop and emerge in the lead.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Russell had fallen to third in the closing laps after being overtaken by Kimi Antonelli, but a surprise late retirement for his team-mate promoted him back to second.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
While it represents a much-needed result after a difficult run of races, Russell remains unsure why Mercedes did not commit to its own strategy.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“Obviously, Lewis probably would have come back through anyway, but without a virtual safety car, he would have pitted behind us,” Russell told Sky F1. “Who knows what would have happened?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“I was just struggling towards the end of the stints. I need to review why that was. In the first stint, I felt very comfortable on the on the medium tyre. I felt we pitted really early. Lewis committed to a three stop and I think we should have committed to our own strategy.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s something I want to pick up with the team because I was managing quite a lot at the start and still eking that gap out to Lewis.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“I thought we actually converted to a three and when they told me we\u2019re staying on for two, that was a challenge.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Is Lewis Hamilton now a contender in the F1 drivers’ championship? Let us know by voting below in the latest poll by RacingNews365!\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has revealed that he is set to speak with Mercedes after disagreeing with the strategy he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,17886,17889,17887,17890,17888,11454,315,13765,17609,13755,801],"class_list":["post-40446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}