Mercedes admit “decisive” mistake over delayed team orders at Mexico City GP

The Mercedes F1 team have admitted they were not “decisive” enough when applying team orders at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

George Russell dropped behind teammate Kimi Antonelli after a messy start to the race.

Russell was caught up in the Lewis Hamilton-Max Verstappen battle, losing track position to Haas’ Ollie Bearman and Antonelli.

Russell, who repeatedly complained over team radio that he had more pace than his teammate, requested a chance to attack Bearman ahead.

Mercedes eventually agreed, but Russell felt it was too late, as his tyres were overheating. He was unable to overtake, ultimately giving the place back to Antonelli in the latter stages.

Speaking after the race, Antonelli called on Mercedes to “review” their decision.

“I really appreciate that from the team because at least I got the position back,” he said.

“Of course, you know, we need to review because I think if we would have held position, obviously, it’s very easy to talk now, but if we would have held position, probably we would have had a better chance to undercut Ollie [Bearman] and probably would have had a better shot to finish maybe P4 and P5.

“But obviously, as I said before, it’s easy to talk now and we just need to review in order to not make the same mistake.”

Mercedes admit mistake

Mercedes team representative Bradley Lord conceded there were lessons learned from Mexico. He described it as a “tricky situation,” with Oscar Piastri close behind Russell at the time.

“It was a really tricky situation,” Lord explained. “We had Kimi driving in a way to manage his tyres, managing to a one-stop and doing exactly what was being asked of him.

“George was obviously under pressure from Piastri… closing that gap and then in the dirty air, using more of his tyres because of that and also feeling that he had pace to get past.

“We did eventually decide to swap and I think in hindsight regardless of whether we decided to hold position or swap, it was the delay that didn’t work out for us.”

He added: “It was very difficult to overtake in Mexico with the low downforce, very difficult with the dirty air phenomenon that seems more penalising now than at any part of these rules since 2022. So it was a tricky situation and we probably didn’t get everything right in how we managed it.

“The lesson is really that we should have been more decisive either in asking to hold position or swapping the positions rather than waiting the time we did.”