George Russell: We definitely need to put pressure on it

At the end of the Japanese Grand Prix, both Mercedes drivers earned points, but they finished in the second half of the top ten, which obviously does not suit them.

George Russell (7th): “At the end of the race I tried to stay ahead of Oscar Piastri, to do this I took the inside track, but there was contact between the cars. However, I think there was enough room in the corner for both cars to stay on track.

I think I would have been disappointed if I had finished behind him. In terms of our tactics, I think the decision to start on hard tires was right, as it gave extra flexibility and the ability to choose between one pit stop and two. But when the race was stopped by red flags, we decided to complete the entire route with two pit stops.

In the first stint we had some problems, I was stuck behind Lewis and I started to have problems with the front tires, although I would have preferred to fight with the rivals at the front because after the pit stop we were in a situation where we had the chance to to impose the battle on McLaren.

Of course, I understood that Fernando Alonso deliberately let Oscar Piastri come closer so that he could use DRS – Fernando likes to play such games, and this is nothing new. He used this technique wisely, but this was exactly what I expected from him, because this is also part of racing.

There is a very intense rivalry between the top four teams, not including Red Bull, and the results are quite close, including in qualifying. Whoever is ahead of this group at the end of qualifying will finish first. We know we have something to work on, and since our job is to fight for second place in the Constructors’ Championship, we definitely have to push harder.

At the same time, we believe that the Chinese Grand Prix circuit, where the next phase of the season will take place, suits our car slightly better than the previous three.”

Lewis Hamilton (9th): “I don’t think we could have gone any higher even if we had used different tactics. I don’t know if it would have been possible to do otherwise, because if we had started on Medium tires we would still have had to switch to Hard tires, and they just worked terribly on our car.

All in all it was a difficult day. I have done everything I can, but the result is not good. Unfortunately this is the car we have. Moreover, he was slightly damaged at the start due to contact with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, after which there was serious understeer, especially in the first stint – so I decided to let George take the lead.

Once we switched to the Medium tires things got a little better, but it wasn’t until the last part of the race that I felt the grip was good.

We have to keep working hard because it seems like the best we can fight for today is sixth place. If we want to move up to higher positions, we have to increase the pace of the car.”