Why didn’t the team order George Russell to let Lewis Hamilton through in the 2023 F1 Saudi Arabian GP? Mercedes director explains

George Russell was not ordered to let Lewis Hamilton pass during the 2023 F1 Saudi Arabian GP because the hard tires were supposed to be the faster tires later in the stint.

After the safety car period, George Russell had Lewis Hamilton behind him in P5 on medium tires. At the time, since the young Mercedes driver was on slower hard tires, there was an expectation that the team could order George to let Lewis pass.

However, that did not happen and George Russell will finish the race in P4 while Lewis Hamilton will be P5.

Touching on the subject during the Mercedes debrief, Mike Elliot revealed that one of the major reasons behind switching the two drivers on the track was the fact that the hard tires were supposed to be quicker later in the stint.

If that happened then Russell would have been quicker in the later stages and the team would have been forced to make the change again. Elliot revealed that at that stage, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were free to race on the track and Mercedes did not see a need to interfere.

He said:

"First of all you’ve got to bear in mind that the Safety Car was pretty early so it was going to be a very long final stint. Although Lewis came out on the faster tyre theoretically the Medium, by the end of the stint, the Hard tyre was going to be a much quicker tyre."

He added:

"So, although Lewis could put pressure on George initially he wasn’t going to be able to do that at the end of the stint and so there probably wasn’t a clear which tyre is faster or slower if you look at the full stint length."

"We've always let our drivers race, that's just the way we have operated as a team and we didn’t think we were going to be in a position where favoring one driver over the other would get us in a better position in the race. So, we just let them race."

Damon Hill backs Lewis Hamilton to make a strong comeback

Hill has backed Hamilton to bounce back from an average race in Jeddah where Russell got the better of him. When questioned if the Mercedes driver could make a strong comeback at the next race in Australia, Hill told Sky Sports F1:

"This is what Lewis does. He gets down and then fights back. Never count him out. He will go away and rebuild himself, and when he gets the car he wants, he will be formidable again."

Lewis finds himself 5th in the championship and already 24 points behind Max Verstappen. Any potential bid for the title by the Mercedes driver is unlikely now as the team continues to struggle.