Things have not been great in Mercedes camp for some time now, and it is no secret why. After five years of having a cooperative teammate like Valterri Bottas, it was obvious that Hamilton would have had some problems dealing with feisty George Russel.
Now, Mercedes does not usually restrict their drivers from having healthy competition on the tarmac.
But back in Japan GP, when the team issued a mandate claiming that the drivers should not compete with each other, Russel did not comply as amicably as Bottas did in the past.
Also, Russel expressed his resentment quite publicly during the deployment of team orders.
According to Russel, he got a short hand due to the one-stop strategy in Suzuka. But what is more surprising is that Russel himself decided the strategy he was lambasting.
Therefore, one would say that maybe he should have accepted the consequences of his own strategy.
Aftermath Of The Interview
This is something that did not sit well with many fans and insiders alike. One such person was Toto Wolff, ex-Ferrari boss. Ferrari and Mercedes as a team are known to be classy.
Therefore, when Russel went on air to throw flak at his team, it irked a lot of people, including Mercedes’s boss, Peter Windsor.
In a recent appearance in a YouTube video, Windsor was found saying, “At this point, George gets on the radio, & says, ‘Are we racing other teams or are we racing ourselves? This is kind of an aggressive thing for a Mercedes driver to say in public on air on the radio. Bearing in mind this is the most conservative of bluechip Formula 1 teams.”
Windsor further added, “They wanted to get on with the 2022 season & didn’t wanna make too much of a drama. So no problem, that’s how, that’s what Mercedes are: very conservative Formula 1 team.”
Therefore, this shows how George Russel is slowly isolating himself from his team due to his overtly competitive mentality.
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