All drivers were forced to use full rain tires for the restart after the red flag, although it was obvious as they raced behind the safety car that intermediates were soon to be an option.
Only Nicholas Latifi and Sebastian Vettel opted to do so as soon as the green flag flew, then Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas followed suit at the end of the first flying lap.
It soon became clear that the intermediates were the right choice, and so most riders made it to the next lap.
Running in seventh place, Russell got into a heated debate with his engineer over whether or not he should enter.
Russell eventually obeyed the order to pit and followed teammate Lewis Hamilton into the pits, where he lost precious seconds as the cars were overtaken.
By the time the stoppage streak played out, Russell had dropped from seventh to 12th, while Hamilton, on the other hand, held on to fifth.
Russell was also four places behind Fernando Alonso, who had immediately preceded him on the restart, and had gone one more lap to avoid being lapped behind team-mate Esteban Ocon.
As soon as he came out of the pit lane, Russell made his frustration clear, saying, “It’s the worst decision we’ve made.”
George Russell, Mercedes W13
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Starting in 12th place, Russell was finally able to reclaim ninth place, after making some impressive overtakes. However, his main goal was to keep his intermediaries alive.
“It was the silver lining, it was nice and fun,” he said of the overtakes. “But it was really a tire management race. It was probably the most amount of tire management I’ve ever done in an F1 race, considering it’s wet, that’s quite surprising.
“It capped off two bad races for us for various reasons. Yes, we have to look and see what happened.
Russell had said after qualifying that he would prefer a dry race as a lack of DRS in wet conditions would exacerbate the Mercedes’ lack of straight-line performance compared to its rivals.
“I think it’s difficult for everyone,” he said. “I don’t know what the race as a whole was like, but these F1 cars without DRS, you can’t overtake. Maybe in the future there will have to be a little rethinking of how you get that advantage when you are less than a second away.
Asked by Autosport about his frustrations with the pit strategy, he said: “I have to look back and see it again. I knew everyone would be in the pits and we would waste a lot of time piling up, because everyone was behind.
“I think I could have done one more lap. I don’t know where Fernando came out of the pits, but I was right behind him, I was faster than him and I would have stopped the same lap as Fernando. But yeah, I probably lost 10 seconds in the pit lane.
All drivers were forced to use full rain tires for the restart after the red flag, although it was obvious as they raced behind the safety car that intermediates were soon to be an option.
Only Nicholas Latifi and Sebastian Vettel opted to do so as soon as the green flag flew, then Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas followed suit at the end of the first flying lap.
It soon became clear that the intermediates were the right choice, and so most riders made it to the next lap.
Running in seventh place, Russell got into a heated debate with his engineer over whether or not he should enter.
Russell eventually obeyed the order to pit and followed teammate Lewis Hamilton into the pits, where he lost precious seconds as the cars were overtaken.
By the time the stoppage streak played out, Russell had dropped from seventh to 12th, while Hamilton, on the other hand, held on to fifth.
Russell was also four places behind Fernando Alonso, who had immediately preceded him on the restart, and had gone one more lap to avoid being lapped behind team-mate Esteban Ocon.
As soon as he came out of the pit lane, Russell made his frustration clear, saying, “It’s the worst decision we’ve made.”
George Russell, Mercedes W13
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Starting in 12th place, Russell was finally able to reclaim ninth place, after making some impressive overtakes. However, his main goal was to keep his intermediaries alive.
“It was the silver lining, it was nice and fun,” he said of the overtakes. “But it was really a tire management race. It was probably the most amount of tire management I’ve ever done in an F1 race, considering it’s wet, that’s quite surprising.
“It capped off two bad races for us for various reasons. Yes, we have to look and see what happened.
Russell had said after qualifying that he would prefer a dry race as a lack of DRS in wet conditions would exacerbate the Mercedes’ lack of straight-line performance compared to its rivals.
“I think it’s difficult for everyone,” he said. “I don’t know what the race as a whole was like, but these F1 cars without DRS, you can’t overtake. Maybe in the future there will have to be a little rethinking of how you get that advantage when you are less than a second away.
Asked by Autosport about his frustrations with the pit strategy, he said: “I have to look back and see it again. I knew everyone would be in the pits and we would waste a lot of time piling up, because everyone was behind.
“I think I could have done one more lap. I don’t know where Fernando came out of the pits, but I was right behind him, I was faster than him and I would have stopped the same lap as Fernando. But yeah, I probably lost 10 seconds in the pit lane.