George Russell says his radio messages about fighting teammate Lewis Hamilton were just “a release valve” and that he was happy with the way the pair raced each other in the Japanese Grand Prix.
Hamilton had contact with Sergio Perez at the start of the race and had to defend from Russell in the early stages, with a small error when he ran wide at Turn 9, the second Degner, leaving him under pressure and fighting his teammate again. After Hamilton’s defensive move forced his teammate wide across the curb at Spoon, Russell complained on the way they were battling over team radio but later downplayed the comments.
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“We use the radio as a bit of a release valve because it’s so hot in the car — it’s a long race, you’re there pushing for an hour and a half, you’re fighting every inch,” Russell said. “But for myself now, there’s two goals. The main goal is to finish P2 in the constructors’ championship.
“The drivers’ championship is totally out of the window for me. Lewis is in a good place to fight for a good position, but the goal is to just finish ahead of Ferrari this season and keep working towards next year.”
Despite then asking for DRS help from Hamilton in the latter stages — something Hamilton said he didn’t think was “a good idea at all” — and referencing being pushed off track by the other Mercedes, Russell says he has no complaints after the race.
“I viewed it as good hard racing. Thankfully we were in a position to put him under pressure and making the moves on him, I was happy with them so I’ll take the positives from that.
“It’s just hard, fair racing. Of course we lost a bit of overall time fighting one another, and again you are a bit frustrated on the radio but it’s something that’s part of racing.”
Russell doesn’t believe his own attempts at a one-stop strategy were hurt by the fight with Hamilton, saying it’s not even a topic that team needs to speak about internally.
“Both of us lost time to the cars around us, so we aren’t going to give up the position easily to one another. It was still early on in the race and I had more pace but he was the car who was ahead.
“As I said, part of racing and there’s nothing to discuss. We’ve got bigger fish to fry, which is how do we make our car faster.”