© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
At the Japanese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton went on the radio to ask the team if he sould let George Russell overtake him. He explains what led up to it.
At one point in the Japanese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton went on the team radio and asked the team if he should let George Russell overtake him.
“Shall I let George by?” he asked.
Soon after Russell was told by the team: “So Lewis will let you by. He’s struggling with a lot of understeer.”
After the race Lewis explained that his car picked up some damage during a scuffle with Charles Leclerc.
“I think I picked up a bit of damage at the beginning with Charles, he came around the outside,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“I had huge understeer for the first stint. I couldn’t turn the car through any of the corners. That’s why I let George by.”
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After the race was red flagged on lap 1, Mercedes decided to put the Briton on a bold hard tyres strategy, and midway through the race, he asked the team to “change the strategy”.
Asked later what could have been gained from a different strategy, Lewis said:
“Nothing, I don’t think. I don’t know what the different strategy would have been.
“Whether it was the mediums to start with? But we still had two terrible hard tyres to run through. It was a real challenge today.
“The hard tyre was pretty bad. The medium tyre was much better. So yes, for sure, in hindsight, it looks like we should have had two medium tyres.
“But, in general, the car was pretty bad today,” Hamilton concluded.
