“I don’t care at all whether Lewis stays or Lewis goes because I believe I can beat anyone on the grid,” said George Russell ahead of the Monaco GP race weekend. The junior Mercedes driver’s comment came in the backdrop of Lewis Hamilton getting a rumored $49 million offer from Ferrari. After this comment, Russell caught everyone by surprise when he made a strange request from the team’s strategists while the race was on. Not only did Toto Wolff & Co. turn down that request but the team boss also went on to laud his senior driver’s efforts.

They often say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. The famous expression summed up Hamilton’s Monaco GP. The Briton did not start the weekend on the best of notes. In FP3, he ended up crashing into the barriers and the qualifying did not go as per plan either. However, he made it all count on the race day by finishing P4 under treacherous driving conditions.

Toto Wolff lauds Lewis Hamilton after snubbing George Russell’s entitled request

With 25 laps more to go and rain starting to pour down, Russell was still running on the hard tires he started the race on. Everything played into his hands as he now had to just get intermediate tires and finish the race with them. However, a stroke of bad luck saw him lock up at Mirabeau. The Briton then rejoined the track in an unsafe manner which saw Sergio Perez crash into him. The stewards handed him a 5-second time penalty for it. By that time, Esteban Ocon and Hamilton had already passed him.

In order to save himself from losing a place to Charles Leclerc owing to the penalty, he asked Mercedes strategists to let him pass Hamilton. He also felt that he was faster than his teammate and could overtake Ocon to win a podium finish.

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As Hamilton later crossed the finish line, Wolff, on the team radio told him, “Yeah Lewis, really well done. As you said, the team has done a brilliant job. Mechanics and strategy team with the right calls at the right time. So, good teamwork.”

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Russell, however, did not take well to the team not allowing him to pass Hamilton. Speaking post-race, he let his frustration known.

Despite a major blunder, George Russell believes he deserved a podium finish

The Monaco Street circuit is one of the most unforgiving tracks on the F1 calendar. We saw how Russell was destined to finish on the podium with the perfect strategy but a momentary lapse of concentration took it all away from him.

Talking with Sky Sports after the race, he said, “P3 was definitely achievable today. I was comfortably ahead of Lewis and Ocon because I hadn’t pitted on the slick. Those guys had pitted and were behind me, I still needed to pit for my medium but obviously I went straight from the hard to the intermediate. So I came out in P5 behind the Ferraris who were on slicks so we were effectively P3 on the road.”

“There was a yellow flag so I backed off and when I touched the brake I just locked up and followed the yellow flag,” he added. “Really disappointed because if that one mistake didn’t happen, P3 was pretty much guaranteed.”

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This was Mercedes’ first run with the new upgrades. The more open Barcelona circuit will offer longer straights, thereby giving a better analysis of how good the upgrades are. Let us see how the Silver Arrows fair in Spain this weekend.