Russell was compromised in Hamilton fight by “collapsed front wing flap” · RaceFans

Mercedes have revealed a problem with George Russell’s front wing compromised his performance in the Mexican Grand Prix.

The team believe he sustained damage to his car on a bump early in his second stint.

“George was hindered when the front wing flap collapsed after he hit a bump during an overtake at the start of the second stint,” Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained. “Despite that, he still maintained good enough pace to bring it home in fifth.”

Having fallen behind Lewis Hamilton at the start, Russell passed him early in the race. But he fell back into his team mate’s clutches when he lost pace in the second stint.

“We let the drivers race each other throughout,” said Shovlin, “that meant that Lewis’ tyres were past their best once he made it into clear air.”

Russell said he had to cope with the loss of front-end grip for more than half the race.

“The first stint I was really pretty happy with,” he told the official F1 channel. “The pace was pretty strong and once I managed to get back past Lewis, I was holding pace with Lando [Norris] and Max [Verstappen].

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“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 I 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 said he put himself at a disadvantage by running too little front wing angle. “It wasn’t looking so racy in the first stint, which is a bit frustrating,” he said.

“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 had a much better race.

“But anyway, I still would have finished fourth. So anyway I’m happy with the second stint, had some good battles coming back.”