How Russell led Mercedes' return to winning F1 ways in Brazil

Lewis Hamilton was at a bit of a loss. When asked to pinpoint quite where the Mercedes turn of speed that enabled team-mate George Russell to lead a 1-2 last weekend had come from, he didn’t really know. What he had instead was a “strange feeling”, a hunch that Red Bull and Ferrari had in fact taken a backwards step for the Brazilian Grand Prix. But was he right – did the Silver Arrows step up a gear or did its rivals regress? Inevitably, the truth sat somewhere in between.

The W13 debuted its final upgrade package of the season in the United States last month. Sporting tweaked wings and a revised floor, Hamilton was able to threaten for victory but only after a disastrous 11-second pitstop for Max Verstappen.

Then in Mexico, it was more meritocratic. Both Mercs were in the mix before a conservative switch to hard tyres and the call not to split strategies seemed to scupper hopes of getting off the mark in the first year of the modern ground-effects era. Time was rapidly running out for the team to satisfy its repeated pre-summer break declaration that, despite all the porpoising and drag, it could win a race in 2022. But the eight-time constructors’ champion finally saved face at Interlagos to extend the recent run of positive races.

As Russell alluded to after winning the Saturday sprint contest, beyond the aero tweaks, he and Hamilton are now driving a “slimmer” car. Team boss Toto Wolff – who likely regrets not flying to Brazil as part of a fractionally reduced schedule – says the strife earlier this season put Mercedes “eight to 10” months behind with its development programme as it sought to fully troubleshoot the car.

Since cutting the kilos has played a major role in Verstappen and Red Bull’s imperious form of late, it holds up that a delayed but lighter W13 could well have created the recent gains. And while the budget cap offers some constraints, losing the weight doesn’t fall under the restrictive Aerodynamic Testing Regulations that limit windtunnel time. Therefore, it’s a lower-hanging fruit for the Brackley design office to pick.

Circuit type has also played a defining factor in the Three-Pointed Star’s upward trajectory. The thin air that came with the high altitude of Mexico City helped mask the W13’s lingering drag, while the lower speeds of the twisting Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace did similar this time around. Combine the aero and lightweight tweaks with favourable tracks, and Russell reckoned the car has now improved by “well over a second” compared to how it rolled out for round one in Bahrain back in late March.

Those were the Mercedes improvements, but it was also true to say that Red Bull endured arguably its least competitive round of the term last weekend. From the early laps of FP1, Verstappen was complaining of understeer – his least favourite trait in a car. It was this washing wide with an RB18 that was rumoured to be as much as 20kg over the minimum 798kg weight limit that enabled Sergio Perez to run the two-time champion so close in the early races. That bad habit was back last weekend.

Red Bull's struggles with understeer combined with Verstappen choosing medium tyres for the sprint helped Mercedes claim a front row lockout for the grand prix

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

What’s more, owing to the sprint weekend format, after only FP2 the cars were locked under parc ferme conditions to leave the engineers largely limited to front wing tweaks to bring the handling back to Verstappen’s liking, which they struggled to do.

Ferrari at least got noticeably better as the Brazilian event wore on. Carlos Sainz was down to serve a five-place grid penalty for the main event on Sunday as a legacy of requiring his fifth internal combustion engine of the season. Then, the foolish decision to send Charles Leclerc out on intermediate tyres for Q3 not only ruined his session, but also hurt his team-mate when the Spaniard was held behind the sister F1-75 that was really little more than a rolling roadblock.

Also, race simulations in practice indicated that the Scuderia had been too optimistic in declaring its 2022 Mexico nadir to be a one-off. The red cars were several tenths adrift across tyre compounds. But the green shoots of a recovery were emerging. Sainz had deposed Verstappen in the sprint and kept Hamilton at bay while Leclerc recovered to sixth place.

"I could definitely feel the rear didn't feel as stable as it had done prior to that. But I managed to make changes on my steering wheel and kind of reconfigured the balance" Lewis Hamilton

Those elements considered, this looked by some way to be Mercedes’ best chance of ending its season-long drought. And that was even before Russell and his stablemate took their places on the front row of the grid, both having publicly acknowledged that they would work together and split their strategies if required to deliver the spoils.

Analysis: Why Mercedes can realistically resist Verstappen to win in Brazil

Russell launched expertly on his soft tyres to run clear of Hamilton, with the seven-time champion well ahead of the second-row Red Bulls to maintain a team 1-2 for the cascade through the Senna esses. With Lando Norris hooking up beautifully out of his grid slot to immediately demote highest-placed medium-starter Leclerc, the RB18s instead had a McLaren to worry about.

Perez fairly shut the door on the Brit. That left Norris to trip over the inside kerbs at Turn 1 as Verstappen dropped four car lengths back to Hamilton before a first-lap safety car was deployed. The intervention owed itself to Daniel Ricciardo tamely clipping the rear of Friday qualifying superstar Kevin Magnussen to pitch the Haas into a spin. But as the Dane rolled backwards, he collected the guilty Australian to fire him into the barriers.

With a smattering of wheels, carbonfibre and advertising boards for the marshals to clean up, the green flags didn’t return until the end of lap six. But when the safety car did peel in, Russell managed the restart cutely. He weaved his way up the main straight to maintain tyre temperature before stamping on the accelerator as he drew level with the central reservation denoting the start of the pitlane. The Red Bulls reacted better than Hamilton, with Verstappen straight away having to check his pace to avoid nudging the Mercedes that had wandered across the racing line.

Verstappen attacked Hamilton around the outside approaching Turn 1 at the restart, but contact as the pair swung right at Turn 2 delayed both

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

With Perez gaining a double tow to consider a lunge on the inside, Verstappen opted for the outside line to demote the Mercedes. But as the track back snaked to the right and Hamilton briefly edged half a car length back ahead, the fierce 2021 championship rivals collided. The RB18’s front-left corner collected the Silver Arrow when Hamilton steered to the right to make the apex. Verstappen came off poorer as his front wing was badly torn up, while Hamilton took to the runoff and feared the worst as he slipped to eighth.

“All I thought in that moment was that the car would have to retire,” he said. “I was driving across the grass, back onto the track, and all I could think of was how can I get back to giving the team that incredible [1-2] result… I definitely thought I had a puncture. I could definitely feel the rear didn't feel as stable as it had done prior to that. But I managed to make changes on my steering wheel and kind of reconfigured the balance.”

For his role in the spill, Verstappen was handed a five-second penalty after pitting for mediums and a new wing. The stewards reckoned he carried too much speed and was “predominantly at fault”, while noting Hamilton might have left more room. Verstappen, unsurprisingly, held a firmer view. He said: “There was zero intention to leave me space.”

It was a debatable decision from the FIA. But the similar punishment that Norris was about to earn was anything but. Through Turn 7, while battling with Leclerc, the MCL36 driver pedestrianly understeered into the side of Ferrari to pitch it spinning into the outside wall. Leclerc was able to resume to prevent a second swift safety car before stopping for mediums also.

As some of the major players were in the wars, Russell neatly led Perez by 1.5s and was quite content on the soft C4 tyres. Despite the considerable rise in temperatures compared to the sprint race, the stellar Mercedes car balance and tyre preservation hadn’t been upset. That left the Brit to calmly tell the pitwall to leave him out as he found another 2s over the Mexican.

Meanwhile, Hamilton had picked off Sebastian Vettel, used DRS to demote Norris and then gained third when Sainz pitted on lap 17 for soft tyres after a visor tear-off caused his right-rear brake duct to overheat and billow smoke. Then in clear air, Hamilton closed on Perez to the tune of four tenths per lap.

Red Bull responded by popping its driver onto mediums in a rapid 2s stop. But the pitcrew’s fine work went unrewarded, as Perez resumed just behind Valtteri Bottas and was massively delayed by the Alfa Romeo.

Despite Russell’s readiness to stay put, a window of opportunity had now presented itself to Mercedes. With Perez compromised by a slow out-lap, the team reacted by calling in the leader next time around on lap 24 for his switch to mediums, which placed Hamilton on his starting soft tyres into the lead by just over 10s. But he toured a second per lap slower than Russell as the true power of the undercut began to make itself known. That left Hamilton to pit on lap 29 for a 3.3s change to mediums. He resumed in fourth behind Sainz.

Verstappen contested the FIA's view of events as he was penalised for the contact with Hamilton at Turn 2

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

As the late afternoon sun began to dip, conditions started to cool. While Mercedes had not suffered in the heat, certainly the cars looked to thrive on the mediums as the temperatures fell. Russell was 0.6s per lap quicker than the Red Bulls to build his advantage to 8s. Hamilton was faster still and closed up to Perez.

A sterling run through the first three corners gave him a run into Turn 4 on lap 44. Perez had him covered initially but then, equipped with DRS and a slipstream, the Silver Arrows racer could out-drag the Red Bull up the main straight to reclaim second place to restore a potential Mercedes 1-2.

Clearly fighting a losing battle, Perez was stopped for some more medium boots on lap 47. Although he came back out behind Sainz in fourth, this potential undercut left Mercedes to cover off any threat for the final stint. Hamilton notably protested the decision before pitting. He lost out to Sainz, whose mediums were now 12-laps old, as Russell rejoined a slender 1.1s ahead of the Ferrari before a virtual safety car period.

"[We] all agreed we’re going to let [Russell] drive to the end even without water, on whatever was there to cool it, and just try to finish the race" Toto Wolff

McLaren recorded a double retirement when Norris parked up with an electrical glitch, which created a window for Sainz to come in for a cheaper pitstop and take on a set of scrubbed softs for the closing 18 laps. Then the full safety car was sent out again to bunch up the field.

As the lapped runners (bar Yuki Tsunoda, owing to a systems glitch) were allowed back past and Hamilton clocked that some of the cars behind were on fresher rubber, he’d have been forgiven for having a 2021 Abu Dhabi flashback. “Shoot, guys,” he radioed. “We’ve got people with brand-new tyres behind us!”

He needn’t have worried too much, though. At the restart, Russell repeated his earlier work by pinning the throttle when in line with the pit entry. Hamilton was wise to it this time and went with his team-mate. As both W13s pulled clear of Perez, who was forced to robustly defend against Sainz, Russell soon joined the grand prix winners circle as he crossed the line 1.5s clear.

He duly teared up: “I'm speechless. On the in-lap, all of these memories come flooding back – starting off with my mum and dad in go-karting, all the support I've had from the rest of my family, my girlfriend, my trainer, my manager. The likes of Gwen [Lagrue, Mercedes driver development advisor] who gave me the opportunity to get on the programme with Mercedes, and James Vowles [chief strategist] and Toto. I can't thank them enough.”

Russell might have been crying even sooner had Mercedes not elected to keep it a secret that his car had sprung a water leak.

Russell controlled the race serenely to secure his first Grand Prix win

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“It wasn’t clear that we could actually make it to the end,” said Wolff, who was working remotely. “[We] all agreed we’re going to let him drive to the end even without water, on whatever was there to cool it, and just try to finish the race.”

Had the team result not taken absolute priority, Hamilton might have taken the fight to Russell. They were, after all, free to race. But he would drop out of DRS range and barely break a sweat for the run to the flag. Perhaps this was to avoid any contention and help his car by dropping out of the dirty air. It was, therefore, a much more harmonious Mercedes camp compared to its rival teams.

With Leclerc desperate to reclaim second in the points, he continued his weekend-long string of irate radio messages as he pleaded for Sainz to drop back and hand over third spot. But Ferrari left the pair to it, and Sainz was never told to move over to complete the podium a further 2.5s down on Hamilton.

Even then, that had nothing on the Red Bull dispute. On the slower medium tyres for the final stint, Perez didn’t put up any kind of fight against Verstappen. The Dutch ace insisted he have a crack at the Ferraris. But when they were firmly out of reach, he ignored the instruction to hand the place back to help his team-mate secure his runner-up spot in the championship. It “shows who he really is”, said Perez on the cooldown lap. He soon added: “After all I’ve done for him, [playing a pivotal role in both of Verstappen’s coronations on the day], it's a bit disappointing. I’m really surprised.”

Verstappen, meanwhile, would only state a vague “I had my reasons” for not reversing the order. Ostensibly, those relate to qualifying for the Monaco GP when Perez is accused of crashing on purpose to trump his team-mate. Regardless of Verstappen’s motives, perhaps it’s no coincidence that it all bubbled over on the first occasion that Mercedes truly had the better of its Milton Keynes opposer in 2022.

The favourable nature of the circuit and a decidedly off-colour weekend for Red Bull certainly elevated Mercedes in Interlagos. A return to the more typical competitive order seen throughout this season is more likely for the Abu Dhabi finale. Nevertheless, Russell heading a 1-2 after such a torrid 10 months reflects how relentlessly the Brackley operation has been chasing a revival.

Now, though, F1 has been given a glimpse of the three-way battle that could unfold as early as next season. As such, it’ll be all hands-on deck over the winter. In Hamilton’s words: “For a long, long period of time, we couldn’t really, truly understand what the problem was or how to fix it. It was difficult, because we kept trying and trying and trying and every time something new came, we still had the problems we had.

“So, this is really, really huge. We know where our North Star is, we know where we need to put all our efforts into this winter. I'm so proud of the team for all the incredible hard work. We wouldn't be able to be up here today without them.”

Russell and Hamilton enjoyed soaking up the spoils of victory after a tough year

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images