Russell unaware of water leak Mercedes feared might have ended Brazil win hopes

Russell scored his maiden grand prix win at Interlagos on Sunday after controlling proceedings to guide residence a 1-2 end forward of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

It ended Mercedes’ winless season with one race to spare, and got here two years after Russell was cruelly denied a probable victory on the Sakhir Grand Prix when he made a stand-in look for the crew.

Nevertheless it emerged after the race that a difficulty on Russell’s automotive left Mercedes sweating on him really attending to the chequered flag, revealing a water leak had emerged at half distance.

“We had a water leak on the automotive all through the race, and it wasn’t clear that we might really make it to the tip,” mentioned crew principal Toto Wolff.

The crew defined that it had issues at one stage the water leak would go away Russell a handful of laps in need of reaching the end, just for the automotive to carry on and make the chequered flag.

Russell was not knowledgeable there was the difficulty on his automotive as Wolff mentioned the crew members “all agreed we’re going to let him drive to the tip even with out water, on no matter was there to chill it, and simply attempt to end the race.”

George Russell, Mercedes W13, 1st place, arrives in Parc Ferme

Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Russell defeated Max Verstappen in a wheel-to-wheel struggle within the dash race on Saturday to realize P1 on the grid, after which managed to maintain the sister Crimson Bull of Sergio Perez at bay within the opening stint.

A late risk got here courtesy of Hamilton, who was free to race Russell on the final security automotive restart and had tyres that had been two laps brisker than his youthful team-mate’s set of softs.

Russell was heard asking at one stage if the crew was going to let the drivers race, however Wolff mentioned crew orders was by no means one thing that was thought of.

“As a crew, we all the time stood totally free racing, and now we have by no means achieved in any other case, until a driver is mathematically not in competition any extra for a championship and the opposite one is,” mentioned Wolff.

“We had been really trying ahead to them racing on par with the identical tyre, and we mentioned it this morning within the technique assembly.”