George Russell held up his hand and apologized to Carlos Sainz for punting the US Grand Prix poleman out of the race at the first corner.
Russell had crept up the inside of Turn 1 at the start, but locked up and ran a bit wide and into Sainz's path. The contact spun the Spaniard but more importantly damaged a radiator on the Ferrari that forced Sainz into retirement.
Russell was handed a five-second penalty for the misstep and while he managed to finish fifth, the Briton said after the race that his afternoon of racing at the Circuit of the Americas had been his worst Sunday of the year.
"Firstly apologies to Carlos. I’ve already been to see him," commented Russell.
"When I was attacking into Turn 1 and I saw he was on the outside of Max [Verstappen] I was expecting him to try to hold it around the outside of him, and as soon as I recognised he was trying to cut back underneath Max, I had already committed to my braking zone, and contact was inevitable.
"But as a driver you need to be aware of those possibilities of the cars ahead.
"If he was holding it around the outside of Max for sure I would’ve been fine, as I was battling with Lewis, not with those cars ahead.
"As soon as you slow it down as a driver and try to cut underneath, it was difficult. As I said, I hold my hands up to that. There is not a lot more to say than that."
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At first glance, there was no visible damage on Russell's W13, but the Briton felt that something was askew, and he hoped that a post-race inspection would prove him right given his difficulties in keeping his car "on the black stuff" all afternoon.
"Initially we didn’t think there was much damage, but I’ve got to say it was probably the worst Sunday of my year today," he said.
"I was sort of nowhere with regards to the pace. I am hoping that when we look at the car there might be a bit more damage than we first expected.
"But as soon as I recognised I was out of striking distance of Checo [Perez] and Charles [Leclerc] it was a matter of bringing the car home, because we were struggling to keep it on the black stuff today.
"It was a bit all over the place, the balance was inconsistent through the stint, and through the lap," he added.
"It was tricky conditions out there today. The only strange thing from the race was that my middle stint was relatively competitive when I was tucked up behind Checo and Charles.
"I was right on the back of them within DRS range for a number of laps, so that was the odd one out. The first stint and last stint I was nowhere."
©Mercedes
Russell will have been relieved to learn some time after the race that his Mercedes had indeed suffered an injury during his first corner contact with Sainz that had significantly impacted its behaviour.
There were therefore mitigating circumstances behind his disappointing performance, as Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff later confirmed.
"I think the incident at Turn 1 is a racing incident," commented Wolff.
"Maybe, if I was a steward, George had a late brake, a little understeering moment and then Carlos cut in quite brutally, I don’t know if Max had an energy thing or not.
"So it is a shame, but we need to take it on the chin, the five seconds, and the way he T-boned him we were surprised that it was not a DNF.
"But we’ve just seen the front wing, it is massively damaged, not only the front wing endplate but also below, and that’s the aero critical part, so he had a car that was not capable of more."
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