George Russell’s final stint in yesterday’s race was compromised by his team making a mistake at his final pit stop.

Mercedes revealed it encountered a problem changing the front wing level on Russell’s car when he made his final tyre change. Formula 1 teams use adjustment ‘guns’ which quickly apply a pre-determined adjustment to the wing mechanism.

“In our final pit stop we actually incorrectly adjusted the front wing owing to a problem with the adjuster gun,” Mercedes’ deputy team principal Bradley Lord said in a video released by the team. “That meant he was driving with a very, very oversteery balance that certainly compromised his pace in the final stages.”

Russell was narrowly leading his team mate when the stint began. Andrea Kimi Antonelli passed him with five laps to go, but suffered a technical problem soon afterwards which ended his race.

However Russell was beaten to victory by Lewis Hamilton, who pitted once more than the Mercedes driver. Afterwards Russell indicated he would have preferred to match Hamilton’s three-stop strategy.

Lord said the team stuck to a two-stop strategy as they believed Russell would have fallen behind Hamilton even if he had pitted immediately after the Ferrari.

“As often happens at circuits where the degradation is high and the temperatures are high, it’s quite finely balanced pre-race between two and three stops,” he explained. “We felt a two-stop was preferable, and even when Lewis pitted very early in the first stint, we covered with George to retain track position, as that matters in Barcelona.

“By the time they got to the second stop for the Ferrari, Lewis boxed, and he was just within undercut range, so that meant we couldn’t pit George and retain track position over the Ferrari without potentially coming out behind him. So we chose to commit to the two-stop strategy with both cars.”

Hamilton’s cause was aided by a Virtual Safety Car period which halved the amount of time he lost making his final pit stop.

“It’s true to say Ferrari were a little bit fortunate with the VSC that put Lewis out on track ahead of our cars at that final pit stop,” said Lord. “Had that not happened, then he’d have had to fight his way through the field. It doesn’t mean the result would have necessarily changed, but we could have put ourselves in a stronger position to claim that win.”

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2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine

Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing.