Lewis Hamilton has offered to sacrifice his upgrades to give his Mercedes teammate George Russell the best possible chance at the US Grand Prix. Russell suffered a high-speed crash at Turn 19 in the final stages of Q3 in Austin. He slipped through the gravel trap and into the guard rails, causing the yellow flags to wave.
The impact severely damaged his car, which featured the latest upgrades his team had brought for the Austin race. Since the team only has two sets of the upgrades, one for each driver, there are no spare parts. So the damage Russell has suffered means the Brit may have to revert to the previous development version.
Such a change in specification in parc ferme normally means a driver must start from the pitlane, but as this is a sprint event, different rules apply and such changes are allowed without penalty.
Russell: Won’t accept Hamilton’s offer
Article 40.4 of the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations states that this is possible as long as “the participant can prove that there is a defect in the part and provided that the spare part has a specification that has previously been used in a qualifying session or race. “
However, downgrading the parts has an impact on performance and limits Russell’s chances of moving up from his sixth starting position. After the session, Russell reveals that team-mate Hamilton, who was eliminated in Q1, has offered to give away his own parts to help him – but he says such a move is unlikely.
“Right now it’s about the parts,” said Russell. “We will have to go back to the old parts. Lewis has kindly offered his parts but we won’t exchange them. So I don’t know what will happen now but that is the biggest concern.”
Mercedes will consider the best plan for the race this evening, but it is considered unlikely to accept Hamilton’s offer – as that would mean major work would need to be carried out on two cars.
“Tomorrow’s race will be a tough battle,” suspects team boss Toto Wolff. “After his accident in Q3, George is facing extensive repairs. Since Lewis is starting from 19th place, the race will be about damage limitation: it will be difficult to fight for a good score of points. For that to work, a lot has to go for us in the race .”
Mercedes puzzles: Nothing changed, but pace gone
Russell himself says his crash was the result of him simply pushing too hard to make up for a gap in pace: “All season we fight for pole position and for victories when the car is in the sweet spot,” says he. “Like yesterday when we were both fighting for pole position and today we were both almost eliminated in Q1.”
“I really pushed on the last lap and tried to find performance that wasn’t there and paid the price for it. I’m just disappointed in myself because everyone worked so hard to bring the upgrades . Now it’s all gone.”
Russell is also surprised at the mysterious drop in pace, as the team hasn’t made any dramatic changes to the set-up since the sprint, but Saturday’s qualifying was a lot more difficult than Friday’s sprint qualifying.
“We don’t have any answers because we keep finding ourselves in this position,” he says. “It’s how the car interacts with the tires. The temperature, small changes like the wind. But it’s been that way all season, whether it’s old parts or new parts. Either we’re there or we’re half a second away .”
