The Mexican Grand Prix witnessed a captivating battle between two British Formula 1 drivers, Lando Norris and George Russell. Starting from 17th on the grid, Norris displayed impressive pace throughout the 71 laps, outperforming his compatriot Russell, who began the race from P8.
Norris’s journey up the ranks included skillful overtakes on Alex Albon, Oscar Piastri, and Daniel Ricciardo, eventually securing the sixth position right behind Russell.
As Norris closed in on Russell, the McLaren pit wall advised, “We know what Russell is like, he’s all or nothing. So you just have patience with him.”
However, Norris didn’t display much patience as he relentlessly pursued Russell, attempting to pass him. Russell initially defended his position but ran wide, opening a window for Norris to execute a switchback move. Norris swiftly covered the racing line, leaving Russell with no opportunity to counterattack.
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, shared his perspective on the message from the McLaren pit wall, stating, “I think that these two have probably had that race situation hundreds of times in their life so they will have known what to do. I think it was more of a message like don’t crash, we need those points.”
Wolff attributed Russell’s performance issues to tire troubles. Russell had closely followed Carlos Sainz but had to back off as his tires started to overheat. Unfortunately, cooling the tires didn’t help him regain grip, resulting in a loss of pace and a position.
Reflecting on his race, George Russell pointed to the recurring theme of tire problems, saying, “Story of the weekend, tires. It was really frustrating, I felt really great after the red flag. I was right behind Carlos, couldn’t quite make the overtake, and we had to back off because my brakes were overheating, and we were concerned we wouldn’t make it to the end. As soon as we backed off, I lost all the temperature in my tires, and it was like a survival to the finish line. I was lucky to finish in P6.”
Despite the challenges, George Russell maintains his eighth position in the Drivers’ Championship with 151 points, trailing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 15 points.