George Russell: I didn't want to be too aggressive with Lewis Hamilton at 2022 F1 Mexican GP start

Mercedes driver George Russell revealed that he was too cautious about Lewis Hamilton being on his side when the race started. Russell said that he didn't want to be too aggressive against Hamilton at the start.

Russell stated that this is the reason he lost two places in the first lap and also believes that he would have finished P2 if he wasn't that cautious. The 24-year-old driver said that he knew he couldn't have overtaken Max Verstappen on the outside, but on the other hand, he had Hamilton on the inside.

Russell told Motorsport.com:

"I knew I wouldn't have been able to overtake Max [Verstappen] on the outside, but having Lewis on the inside I didn't want to be too aggressive, obviously him being my team-mate."

George Russell started P2 on the grid and Lewis Hamilton was right behind him. However, after the lights went out, both the Mercedes drivers were close enough to follow up Max Verstappen (who started on pole), but since Hamilton had the upper hand on the inside line of the track, Russell had to slow down.

Russell went wide out of turn three, giving Hamilton the place. He then battled wheel-to-wheel from Perez on turn four, but lost the position to the Mexican on soft tires. George believes that if he had battled and maintained the position, he would have finished P2 in the race. He further said:

"And ultimately that that cost me and caused me to lose two positions. So ultimately if I had managed to maintain position, I probably would have finished second today."

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George Russell admits his mistakes in the previous races

George Russell gave another reasoning for his cautious drive at the 2022 F1 Mexican GP. He acknowledged the mistakes he had made in the past few races and stated that his past mistakes were one of the reasons for not being aggressive at the start of the race. The Briton said:

"But I've had a bit of a scrappy last three races on my behalf, too many incidents, too many mistakes. And that was probably a factor of taking it too cautiously. And there's a balance in there somewhere."

The most recent such incident that George Russell had was at the 2022 F1 United States GP when he crashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari on turn 1 at the start of the race. This meant that Sainz (who started on pole) had to retire from the race and Russell was awarded a 5-second time penalty.

George Russell also partially blamed the team's strategy for the outcome of the race. Both Mercedes drivers started on mediums and then shifted to hards. However, he believes that a soft-medium strategy or doing more laps on mediums and then shifting to softs at the end would have been better.

Daniel Ricciardo was the one who did the medium-soft strategy and pulled off an amazing result as the medium tires lasted for longer than the teams expected. George Russell revealed that he was disappointed that he couldn't do the same.