Russell questions Mercedes' strategy: 'That was not the right thing to do'

George Russell finished the Japanese Grand Prix in eighth and was anything but happy about it. He saw a lot of positions lost because of a strategy by Mercedes that according to the driver, was not the best thing to do.

Russell thinks a top-five finish would have been possible had it not been for the unfavourable strategy Mercedes chose for him. "I was right behind Lewis and double stacking, I was just going to lose all the positions. [There’s] not really much more to say, it was a very frustrating afternoon," he told Formula1.com. Russell fell back to 14th place after his stop.

He eventually managed to find his way back to P8, but according to Russell, there could have been more in it. "I probably could have fought for P5," he continued. He is therefore keen to talk to his team to see what could have been done better. "We need to sit down with the team and see what we could have done better because I think that was probably at the time not the right thing to do," the Mercedes driver concludes.