George Russell says he should have followed his gut in F1 Brazil GP decision, as he is satisfied to finish ahead of the pack who chose that strategy.
Mercedes’ Russell took the F1 Brazil GP lead after passing McLaren’s Lando Norris off the line, after the aborted start sequence. He was overtaken by the latter, but he managed to retake the place to maintain his lead. He was undone by the strategy call, however.
Russell didn’t wish to pit as he feared of a red flag, but Mercedes insisted on pitting despite the Brit’s plea to not do it. He trusted his gut the last time, but didn’t this time and perished in terms of losing a chance of a win and or a podium at least.
He had to be content with a fourth place finish – the highest driver on a strategy different to the Top 3 drivers. He was chasing Alpine’s Pierre Gasly towards the end, but the Frenchman managed to held onto the final place on the podium. “Very painful all things considered,” said Russell to media.
“Not much I want to say really. From a team’s perspective, it’s not obvious at all. From the cockpit, it was very clear it was going to be a red flag or safety car, because the conditions were undriveable. The rain was not easing. I could see the big black cloud above me. And then I had Shov [Andrew Shovlin] jump on as, like, overruling my engineer to say ‘box’.
“We’re working as a team, we’re trying to make the best decisions in the time. Clearly the guys who didn’t pit, they finished 1-2-3 and we finished the highest of the drivers who did. So I would take a small slice of satisfaction from that. It was ‘box’. I said ‘stay out’. It was ‘box’ again, it was ‘stay out’, I said. And they said ‘box’ again.
“As I said, ‘I want to stay out’. And then the last one, you’ve got to go for it…Sometimes you have to trust your gut. Last time I trusted my gut, it went down pretty well. Today, who knows if we could have won the race? But if we didn’t pit, we would have been leading at the restart and the first 30 laps controlling the pace.
“With Lando behind us, we had very good straightline speed as well. P2 would have been a minimum,” summed up Russell. Andrew Shovlin, meanwhile, expanded on the strategy decision in the usual post-race debrief along with the brake troubles and penalty for tyre pressure that they got.
Russell strategy –
Shovlin: “I think with hindsight, you would manage most races differently. But certainly, in this case, we would have done. One of the key things is once they announced that the VSC was ending, we had a very, very short window, only a second or two, where we could have got George to stay out on track. The reason you would have done that is by that point, you are going to suffer a full pit loss anyway. You may as well stay out and just gamble on the fact that it was quite likely someone would have a crash, as happened, and that they are forced to red flag it. Prior to that, stopping to us made sense, because given that Lando was coming in, George was able to do that.
“He would have still been ahead of all those cars that stayed out. But you get the benefit of fresh rubber in case they do not call it as a red flag. Normally, we try not to assume that there is going to be a red flag, because sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong. If there is a safety car and you decide to stay out, assuming a red flag, if you do not get it, you are in trouble. But obviously, the cars that did stay out, that gamble worked for them, and they ended up in prime position.”
Brake issues –
Shovlin: “We had issues with the brakes, and George was talking about this. He said it felt like the brake discs had warped. Carbon brake discs do not warp. They are generally pretty planar, and you do not get those issues. But you can get peculiar things happening on the surface that means you have higher friction in some areas. That can then create a vibration, and that vibration can be felt through the pedals. So, it may feel like the discs are not round, but almost always when you check them, they are. We are not really sure why that was the case, and that is what we are investigating now. Those brake discs have come back to the factory, so we can have a look at them. One factor was they were running quite cold. This was in the wet conditions.
“There are opportunities to change the brake ducts, but as we were into that race without any prolonged wet running, we had to estimate where the temperatures would be. It may be that those very cold temperatures on the carbon was causing an issue, so we will look at that. But in the dry, they were absolutely fine. There is a bit for us to investigate and understand. Hearing other drivers’ comments, we were not the only ones who were struggling with either brake vibration or grabbing and George felt that it was costing him two, maybe even three tenths a lap, just from that uncertainty of whether or not they are going to lock or whether they are going to vibrate going into the big braking zones.”
Tyre pressure, penalty –
Shovlin: “The issue was when we got the message for the restart, that was straight into a 10 minutes to go. The tyres must be fitted to the car at five minutes to go. That meant that we only had a few minutes to get the tyres down to the car, get them on the car, and get them checked by the FIA. That did not fit. In Brazil, it is an unusual pit lane layout. The garages are up high. You have got to go down either right round the pit entry road or there is a gate much further up. But with the position of our garage, we had to get the tyre set quite a long way to make it to the car. Then the added complication was that the set that we called for, which was not a set on the racks, but a set on wheelie boards so we could move them, had not been bled down to race pressures at that point. The engineers will be calling for different tyre pressures. The tyre technicians are then running around trying to make sure all the sets are done.
“These sets were not done. Once we got them down to the car, we were up against that five-minute limit, which is a serious penalty if you do not make that. We had to then get them on the car. We then started to bleed them, but ran out of time. But the penalty was actually because we did not have time for the FIA checks to be done. They were happy that the tyres were at the right pressure. It was simply that the scrutineer was not there supervising the bleed before they went on the car. That was why we were then called to the stewards. The penalty was a $5,000 fine per car. So, $10,000 in total. But as they accepted there was no sporting gain from it and that we were complying with all the regulations around tyre pressures. That was only given for a procedural issue with a mitigating factor that there was not the time available to get them down there and get the checks done before they had to be fitted.”
Here’s George Russell taking lead at the start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-grand-prix-russell-snatches-the-lead-from-norris-at-turn-1-on-the-race-start.1814718186600236213
Here’s Lando Norris taking on George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-grand-prix-norris-powers-past-russell-in-the-rain-for-p4.1814720300662554773
Here’s George Russell retaking track position: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-sao-paulo-grand-prix-russell-takes-p4-back-from-norris-on-the-red-flag-restart.1814722538657222505
Here’s more on GPDA letter
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on disaster Brazil GP weekend
Here’s Lando Norris on George Russell deserving to win
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