Mercedes reveals that a water leak almost ended George Russell's hopes of his maiden Grand Prix win.

Speaking after the race, team boss Toto Wolff, who did not attend the event but was in constant contact with the team, revealed that the leak first appeared around half distance raising fears of a repeat of the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix when the Briton was deputising for Lewis Hamilton. On that occasion a late puncture, which followed a rare botched pit stop from the German team, robbed the youngster of what appeared to be certain victory.

"We had a water leak on the car throughout the race, and it wasn’t clear that we could actually make it to the end," admitted Wolff at race end.

Opting not to tell the driver, thereby placing extra strain on him, Wolff revealed that the team "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".

Water or no water, the Briton went on to score his maiden Grand Prix win, leading teammate Lewis Hamilton home by 1.529s.

At a time Max Verstappen is rightly dominating the headlines for his refusal to obey team orders and yield to his teammate, it's worth noting that no such orders were in place at Mercedes.

Ahead of the second safety car restart, Russell asked his team if he was racing Hamilton.

"What are we doing, are we racing or securing the 1-2?" asked the youngster. "We're racing," he was told, "just be respectful."

"As a team, we always stood for free racing, and we have never done otherwise, unless a driver is mathematically not in contention any more for a championship and the other one is," said Wolff.

"We were actually looking forward to them racing on par with the same tyre, and we discussed it this morning in the strategy meeting."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Interlagos here.

LATEST NEWS

more news >

LATEST IMAGES

galleries >

Click to go to the main galleries section

READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Great_white_shark, 15/11/2022 2:32

"Motorsport-Fan

Yes, because the Red Bull is a little more prone to understeer and that track was harder on their front tyres. I suspect they will be back at the front next weekend but we never know."

Rating: Positive (1) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

2. Posted by Endre, 14/11/2022 19:00

"@Wokingchap LOL give it time, there was nothing for them to fight about this year."

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

3. Posted by Motorsport-fan, 14/11/2022 11:44

"Anyone know why the Mercs where so good here?"

Rating: Neutral (0) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

4. Posted by Wokingchap, 14/11/2022 11:18

"How great to see this huge respect to each other especially on track..... unlike other 'teammates'."

Rating: Positive (3) Rate comment: Positive | NegativeReport this comment

Water leak almost ended Russell's race

LATEST NEWS

RELATED ARTICLES

LATEST IMAGES

POST A COMMENT

Post your comment

READERS COMMENTS

Share this page