George Russell’s final stint in yesterday’s race was compromised when his team made an error during his last pit stop.
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Mercedes confirmed the crew encountered a problem when attempting to set the front wing angle on Russell’s car during that tyre change. Teams use dedicated adjustment tools that rapidly apply a pre-set change to the wing mechanism, and in this case the tool malfunctioned.
“In our final pit stop we actually incorrectly adjusted the front wing owing to a problem with the adjuster gun,” Mercedes’ deputy team principal Bradley Lord said in a team video. “That meant he was driving with a very, very oversteery balance that certainly compromised his pace in the final stages.”
Russell had been narrowly ahead of his team-mate at the start of the stint. Andrea Kimi Antonelli passed him with five laps remaining but then suffered a technical issue that took him out of the race.
Despite Antonelli’s retirement, Russell was ultimately beaten by Lewis Hamilton, who completed one extra pit stop. After the race Russell said he would have preferred to mirror Hamilton’s three-stop approach.
Lord explained the team committed to a two-stop plan because they believed Russell would still have lost position to Hamilton even if he had pitted immediately after the Ferrari.
“As often happens at circuits where degradation and track temperatures are high, the decision between two and three stops is finely balanced before the race,” he said. “We felt a two-stop was preferable, and even when Lewis pitted very early in the first stint, we covered with George to retain track position, as that matters in Barcelona.
“By the time the Ferrari reached its second stop, Lewis boxed and he was just within undercut range. That meant we couldn’t pit George and keep track position ahead of the Ferrari without potentially rejoining behind him. So we committed to a two-stop strategy for both cars.”
Hamilton benefited from a Virtual Safety Car period that effectively halved the time lost during his final pit stop.
“It’s true Ferrari were a bit fortunate with the VSC that put Lewis back on track ahead of our cars at that final stop,” Lord added. “Had that not happened he would have had to fight his way through the field. It doesn’t guarantee the result would have been different, but we could have been in a stronger position to challenge for the win.”
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