Russell urged Mercedes to make key sacrifice

George Russell wanted his Mercedes team to sacrifice the Las Vegas Grand Prix and favour the upcoming Qatar weekend. 

With the expected cool conditions and smooth track surface, Qatar’s Losail circuit is expected to suit the W15 package, with fresh engine components key owing to the power demands. 

As a result and with Mercedes not expected to perform well in Las Vegas last time out, Russell has explained how he wanted the team to remove his freshest engine to save it for Qatar.

In the end, Russell dominated in Las Vegas to take victory from pole position and conceded his relief that the plan did not happen.

“I think we’ve got a good shot in Qatar,” Russell explained to media including RacingNews365.

“To be honest, going into this triple header, I had my sights set on Qatar, even to the point that I wanted to take my freshest engine out and put an old engine in for Vegas, to save my best engine for Qatar. 

“I’m kind of glad we didn’t do that now.”

Mercedes can fly

Russell also described the fine tightrope Mercedes must walk when setting up its car and how the W15 can “fly.”

“It’s no secret that we struggle on the bumpy circuits and we have to lift the car quite a lot,” he said, referring to the ride height. 

“We’ve got to make it much softer, and then we’re in a downforce window where we don’t have any. And it’s not that we just suddenly forget how to set the car up. It’s just certain circuits require us to put the car in a window it doesn’t like to be. 

“On tracks like [Las Vegas] where it’s relatively smooth, we can get the car quite low, quite stiff, with little or no bumps around the track, we fly.”