Mercedes used team orders during the Dutch GP last weekend to help George Russell secure third at Zandvoort, says Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
The call for Russell to let his team-mate Kimi Antonelli through came late in the race, after the VSC period on lap 55 of 72. The Italian, who led for the majority of the distance, came in for a fresh set of rubber, while Russell stayed out on track in an attempt to hold on to third place from the chasing Ferraris.
With Antonelli emerging from the pits behind his team-mate, Mercedes ordered Russell to move aside and let his championship rival through on lap 65 - but as Shovlin explained, the call came mainly to help George avoid losing too much time.
With Antonelli on fresher rubber and potentially able to come through easily anyway, Mercedes did not want Russell to engage in a fight with the sister car, giving him a better chance of defending against the Ferrari drivers, who had also pitted for new tyres.
Russell ultimately obeyed the order, saying after the race it was the right decision from the pit wall, and then defended from the fast-approaching Lewis Hamilton behind.
“The VSC came out on lap 55, [and] both Ferraris took it, so they were going to be on fresh rubber by the restart,” Shovlin explained in Mercedes’ Dutch GP debrief video, distributed via the team’s social media channels. “On lap 56, we still had a window where we could get Kimi in and put him ahead of both of those Ferraris, which put him in a great position to finish ahead of them. And George was running P4 prior to that.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
“Kimi dropped behind George after the stop. Now, why did we invert the cars? Well, that was really about saving George race time. Kimi had the grip to get through, but if we'd allowed them to race each other, George would have lost time to the Ferraris and the Ferraris would have had more time to attack and try and get through.
“Now, as it happened, George defended brilliantly and it was great to see him on the podium. He really deserved that result.”
Mercedes secured a double podium finish in a race where McLaren - at least in Lando Norris’ hands - and Ferrari appeared to have better pace. Still, Russell managed to cross the line 0.8s ahead of Hamilton, with Charles Leclerc finishing fifth another 0.5s behind.
“One of the highlights of the race was just seeing how brilliantly George defended against those Ferraris,” Shovlin said. “There was no guarantee he was going to be able to hold those positions and on a couple of occasions, Lewis looked like he was going to get down the inside.
“George did just enough to prevent it happening. So, really impressive and honestly, he's put together a really impressive weekend, start to finish, sprint pole, sprint victory and very solid qualifying and really smart racing. So good to see George getting back into it.”
Speaking right after the race, Russell himself said he’d never intended to disobey the order, despite quizzing the Mercedes pit wall during the race about the intention behind the call.
“We’ve always said as a team, when we’re on different strategies, we’re never going to fight and we’re always going to invert,” he said, “and that’s always just been our sort of rules. And the fact is, Kimi was ahead of me before the VSC and he tried something different to, you know, protect us as a team. He kind of copy-pasted what the Ferraris did.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images
“Yeah, could I have kept him behind? Maybe. But equally, you know, it could have been a P5 as well. So, in the end, you know, he deserved to be P2. I think P3 was a fair result for me and, yes, a long season.”
Having scored 23 points across the weekend, Russell’s gap to Antonelli in the championship remained unchanged compared to pre-Zandvoort, thanks to the Briton winning the sprint. He still gained a position on Hamilton, moving up to second in the standings despite having the same number of points as the Ferrari driver.
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