Mercedes analysis: Team orders were intended to secure third place for George Russell

It caused quite a stir at the historic Zandvoort Grand Prix – a request for Mercedes driver George Russell to let his team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who was closing in, pass.

Russell briefly questioned the instruction, then made way, and later commented after the race that he wouldn’t have been able to hold Kimi back anyway, as the Italian was faster on fresher tyres.

Many fans and experts wondered: why the team order, then? Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ chief engineer, addressed this in the post-race debrief.

Shovlin said: “On lap 55, the VSC was deployed – a virtual safety car phase – and both Ferraris took immediate advantage of it so that they would be on fresh tyres at the restart. On lap 56, we still had a window of opportunity to bring Kimi into the pits and get him ahead of both Ferraris, which put him in an excellent position to finish ahead of them. And George had previously been in fourth place.”

Andrew Shovlin

Foto: XPB

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“Kimi dropped behind George after the pit stop. Why did we swap the cars’ positions? Well, the main aim was to save George some race time. Kimi had the grip needed to get past, but if we’d let them race against each other, George would have lost time to the Ferraris, and the Ferraris would have had more time to attack and try to get past.”

“But George defended brilliantly, and it was great to see him on the podium. He really deserved this result. There was no guarantee he’d be able to hold those positions, and on a few occasions it looked as though Lewis was going to get past on the inside.”

“George did just enough to prevent that. He’s had a truly impressive weekend – from start to finish: Sprint pole, Sprint win, a very solid qualifying session and a really clever race. It’s so lovely to see George getting back on track.”