P1racenews AI automatic summary:
“The lesson is really that we should have been more decisive either in asking to hold position or swapping the positions rather than waiting the time we did.”
The Mercedes F1 team acknowledged their lack of decisiveness in applying team orders during the Mexico City Grand Prix, leading to George Russell falling behind his teammate Kimi Antonelli after a turbulent start. Russell got entangled in the Hamilton-Verstappen duel, losing ground to Haas’ Ollie Bearman and Antonelli despite his complaints of having more pace. Although Mercedes eventually allowed Russell to attack Bearman, his overheating tires prevented him from overtaking and he had to give the position back to Antonelli later on. Antonelli urged Mercedes to review their decision, suggesting that holding position could have yielded better results. Mercedes’ representative, Bradley Lord, admitted that there were valuable lessons learned from the race, emphasizing the need for more decisive actions in similar scenarios in the future.
