The timing of the VSC was unfavourable for George Russell’s race in Madrid – Mercedes explains why they brought the Briton into the pits for a tyre change
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord has explained why George Russell came into the pits under the virtual safety car at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid last weekend, despite starting on hard tyres.
On Sunday, Russell was the only driver from the top teams not to opt for a one-stop strategy at the Madrid circuit, where overtaking was scarce – a decision largely down to the timing of the VSC deployment.
Race control neutralised the race at the end of lap 14, which played into the hands of the four leading drivers who had started on medium or soft tyres – apart from Lando Norris, who had already passed the pit lane entrance before the VSC was deployed.
Drivers such as Charles Leclerc and Russell, on the other hand, had started the race on hard tyres. Leclerc stayed out and led the race until his pit stop on lap 48, whilst the Mercedes driver switched to medium tyres under the VSC and later back to hard tyres.
Meanwhile, Mercedes team-mate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli took the win after the neutralisation – which worked in his favour – had cleared pole-setter Norris out of the way. “The VSC had a completely different effect on George,” emphasises Lord.
“It came [für Russell] at the worst possible moment, as he had started the race on hard tyres and his plan was to go the distance and capitalise on later race developments,” explains the deputy team principal.
“ He started the race from P6 on hard tyres with the plan to run a one-stop strategy. When the VSC came out, he was the second car on hard tyres behind Leclerc’s Ferrari. That’s why we instructed George to do the opposite of Leclerc.”
‘Why? Because otherwise he would simply have followed Leclerc to the finish. The opportunity for an undercut was very, very limited, and the chance of overtaking was virtually non-existent for cars with tyres of a similar age,’ recalls Lord.
“So we put George on the mediums. We knew those Mediums wouldn’t last the 43 laps to the end, but we wanted to try something different. So George did a 20-lap stint, and then we switched back to Hards because we wanted to stay out on the hard tyres for as long as possible.”
“George put in a truly impressive performance after that. He was fast enough to force Leclerc into the pits earlier than Ferrari would have liked, and so Leclerc came in, giving Kimi a clear run at the front, whilst George put Leclerc under pressure in the final laps whilst he was on the fragile soft tyres, ultimately finishing the race just 0.7 seconds behind.‘
’After the race, George was very pragmatic. He said it wouldn’t really have mattered what we’d done – whether we’d left him out or brought him in. Given how difficult overtaking is in Madrid, he would almost certainly have finished fifth anyway.”
Despite setting the fastest lap of the race by four tenths of a second, Russell’s result was another blow to his title hopes. The Briton is now 81 points behind Antonelli and considers it “extremely unlikely” that he will even be in contention for the 2026 World Championship title.
