Derby Russell-Hamilton: "It doesn't bother me to fight with him"

I’ll step back

After the missed victory in Singapore, Mercedes arrived at Suzuka with the hope of being able to confirm itself in the fight for the top positions. In reality, however, the response that the leaders of the black-silver arrows were expecting did not arrive from the Japanese weekend. In fact, the Brackley team finished the race in fifth and seventh position with Hamilton and Russell, losing another four points to Ferrari in an increasingly open challenge for second place among the Constructors. The Cavallino is now just 20 points behind the Anglo-German team.

But the race of the two W14s also stood out for a couple of direct battles on the track between Hamilton and Russell which will probably have made Toto Wolff jump in his seat, not present at Suzuka because he was returning from a small operation. There was also no shortage of radio teams between the two British drivers, but fortunately contact was avoided. At the end of the race, Hamilton was allowed to pass by Russell in an attempt to make both resist – with the use of DRS – Carlos Sainz’s attack. However, the former Williams driver eventually had to give up, also giving up the position to the Spaniard from Ferrari.

Internal battle

“It didn’t bother me to fight with my teammate compared to battles with others – commented Russell to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 – What more should I have done? At the beginning I felt faster than Lewis. I could have overtaken him in the first laps and I did, but then I immediately lost position on the straight. Afterwards there was another battle around lap 20 and there we lost time”. The reference is to a duel, following a slight excursion off the track by Hamilton, which ended with the seven-time world champion who pushed his garage partner outside the limits of the track.

The episode was also investigated by the commissioners, who however did not find anything irregular in Hamilton’s behaviour. What annoyed Russell, however, was above all the waste of time which he was forced to do under the circumstances. “When you’re in a fight it’s clearly frustrating to waste time like this – he highlighted – but in the end nothing changed. We have to take the positives: we only had one stop, which was very unlikely. Instead we made it possible and didn’t even waste too much time. I’m happy with this“.