Mercedes confirmed that a damaged front wing impacted George Russell's performance during the second half of the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The damage, sustained early in his second stint according to Mercedes, affected the balance and front-end grip of the Briton’s car, making it challenging for him to uphold his fourth place position in the running order ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reckoned that a bump hit by Russell had caused the collapse of one of the wing’s flaps.
“George was hindered when the front wing flap collapsed after he hit a bump during an overtake at the start of the second stint,” Shovlin explained.
“Despite that, he still maintained good enough pace to bring it home in fifth.
“We let the drivers race each other throughout, but that meant that Lewis’ tyres were past their best once he made it into clear air.”
Russell initially lost a position Hamilton at the start of the 71-lap race, but managed to overtake the seven-time world champion on lap 14 while keeping up with McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen up ahead.
However, after his switch from the medium to the hard compound tyre on lap 31, and after damage ensued, holding his own ahead of his teammate during the pair's scrap became a struggle.
“The first stint I was really pretty happy with,” Russell told F1 TV. “The pace was pretty strong and once I managed to get back past Lewis, I was holding pace with Lando and Max.
“Then as soon as I came out of the pits, I hit some sort of bump down the main straight and the left-hand side of the front wing just collapsed. That’s when I was overtaking Oscar [Piastri], I think it was.
“So that really compromised [me], 40 laps I had to do like that. But nevertheless, P4 and P5, as a team probably we would have taken that after Friday.”
Hamilton noted that his own race was also impacted by a front wing issue, albeit one linked to its setting.
“It wasn’t looking so racy in the first stint, which is a bit frustrating,” he admitted. “I had taken too much front wing out of the car and had so much understeer.
“Once you start, that’s it, you’re stuck with it. If I hadn’t had that, then I think we would have had a much better race.”
Despite the difficulties, Hamilton found a rhythm in his second stint and was satisfied with his battles on track.
“But anyway, I still would have finished fourth. So anyway, I’m happy with the second stint, had some good battles coming back,” he added.
Ultimately, despite Russell’s damaged wing and Hamilton’s understeer issues, Mercedes secured a fourth and fifth place finish. While not an ideal outcome, the team took it as a solid result after a challenging weekend.
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