In theory, both Mercedes drivers had a chance to get on the podium in Singapore, and George Russell reiterated more than once during the Grand Prix, talking to his engineer, that he intended to fight for the win. But in reality it turned out differently: Lewis Hamilton took third place and his teammate made a mistake on the last lap, crashing the car just a few corners before the finish and not seeing the checkered flag.
“It’s great that Lewis is on the podium. He had a great race and kept a great pace all the way to the finish,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports. “But it’s a shame for George because he put so much effort into it.” We could have easily finished third and fourth and scored a lot of points, but instead our lead over Ferrari was reduced to 24 points.
Initially it was clear that it would be very difficult to win the race, so we decided to take a risk and use alternative tactics. In the end, Lewis climbed to the podium and this is a great result.
When George flew off the runway, he spoke about this situation on the radio, but those words of his cannot be spoken on television. It was just a bad moment: he made a small mistake, but at the same time took the bump stop and in a split second the race was over for him, although before that everything was going very well. Without that mistake he would have finished third.
If we hadn’t made the second pit stop and stayed on track like our rivals, I don’t think we would have had a chance to fight for the win – that’s why we decided to take the risk. At the same time, we understood that in the worst case we would have taken 3rd and 5th place, and in the best case we would have won, but this is purely theoretical.
I have no doubt that George is very worried after such a failure, so now it is important to cheer him up – that is what I am going to do.
Our goals for the remaining races of the season are to earn more points than Ferrari, show higher speeds and take advantage of all opportunities. But it looks like our car is getting faster, in Singapore we were able to set a good pace and we hope we can maintain second place in the Constructors’ Championship.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
