Russell defends his pre-race switch to slick tyres which Wolff called “wrong”

George Russell insisted his decision to switch to slick tyres before the start of the British Grand Prix was justified but team principal Toto Wolff is not convinced.

The Mercedes driver was the first to pit for slick tyres at the end of the formation lap in wet conditions at Silverstone. Although the track began to dry out, further rain arrived soon afterwards and those who chose to start on slicks suffered as a result.

Wolff said it was the first of several calls the team got wrong in the race. “That was a poor performance all around from us,” he said in a statement issued by the team.

“The first call to take the slick tyre on the formation lap was wrong. From there, we spiralled from bad to worse.”

Russell recovered to sixth place, then lost more ground when he pitted on lap 38 as the track dried and switched from intermediate to hard tyres. “We didn’t fit the right dry tyre at either stop, opting for the hard compound which suffered a challenging warm-up,” said Wolff.

However Russell stood by his original call to switch to slick tyres before the race began. “I think the decision in the beginning was not a bad decision,” he said.

He pointed out the two Virtual Safety Car periods during the opening phase of the race prevented him from being able to take advantage of his slick tyres.

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“It was dry for 25 minutes, but what we didn’t know is we would have 15 minutes of Virtual Safety Car,” he said. “As soon as it was dry, as we got going at the end [of the first stint], we were five seconds faster than the intermediate tyre.

“So I believe with no Virtual Safety Car, I think with dry tyres we would have been ahead of the people on the wet tyre. But that went against us.”

“I do believe with no [Virtual] Safety Car we would have got back into at least the top five as a minimum,” he added.

He said the aggressive strategy was justified because the team weren’t quick enough to fight the leaders otherwise.

“At the end of the day [if] you take a conservative decision, we will come home with a conservative result,” he said. “When you have a fast car you can afford to be conservative because you will always get a good result.”

However he admitted he chose to switch to slick tyres too early at the end of the race. “At the end I was a bit desperate taking the dry tyres,” he said. “I was not expecting the hard [tyre]. At the end, I thought we would go soft or medium.”

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“The decision was my side to pit, the decision of the tyre [compound] was the team and I think both were wrong,” he explained. “I was probably one lap too early for the soft tyre, but for the hard tyre was probably three laps too early.”

“I was in [seventh] at this time, and if you don’t have the pace in the car, sometimes you need to make a brave decision,” he added. “Sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it goes against you.

“I was not expecting the hard tyre at this point. If you’re the first driver to pit for slicks, you normally take the soft tyre, not the hard tyre.”

Russell’s radio messages from the formation lap

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