George Russell, Mercedes Formula 1 driver, expressed “zero hard feelings” for the team orders. He gave his position to Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages of Suzuka.
The team instructed Russell to swap positions with Hamilton and keep Sainz off the world champion. The young driver asked for DRS to help himself clear of Ferrari.
The Spaniard was quick to take a position from Mercedes. Ruseel showed no remorse after the flag. “Yeah, of course,” he said
“You use the radio as a bit of a release valve because, it’s so hot in the car, it’s a long race, you’re there pushing for an hour and a half, you’re fighting every inch.
“The main goal is to finish P2 in the constructors’ championship. The drivers’ championship for me is out of the window totally, Lewis is in a good place to fight for a good position.
“But the goal is just to finish ahead of Ferrari this season, keep on working for next year, so yeah, no issues on my side.”
Sainz believes Mercedes could have made it harder by leaving Hamilton behind.
“Of course, difficult for the team to judge,” Russell noted. “But as I said, myself I’ve got one goal, which is to finish P2 in the constructors’ championship for the team. Lewis has had a really consistent season this year. He’s in a battle for P3 in the drivers’ championship.
“Worst case, we lost two extra points there. But we could have ended up with four points less. So when you take the averages, the team made the right call.
“And from my side, zero hard feelings. As I said, we’ve got to work on the car. We’re not going to get upset over a potential fifth and sixth loss versus a fifth and a seventh.”
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Both team-mates, Russell and Hamilton, gave hard time to each other on several occasion during the race. And despite the former held a better position, he believes that it was only fair.
“I viewed it as good, hard racing,” he said. “To be in the position to be putting him under pressure and making moves on him, I was happy with. So I would take the positives from that.
“The pace on my side I thought was really strong, considering how difficult the car’s been to drive this weekend. It’s just hard fair racing. Of course, we lost a bit of time fighting with one another.
“And again, you are a bit frustrated on the radio, it’s just part of racing.”
He believed it never went too far. He said: “Just both of us lost time to the cars around us. As I said, we’re not going to give the position easily to one another. It was still early on in the race.
“I had more pace but he was the car who was ahead. So as I said part of racing, we’re not even going to discuss it. There’s nothing to discuss. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, which is how to make our car go quicker.
