The Brazilian GP turned into a bit of a nightmare for Mercedes, especially poor George Russell. His day took a nosedive thanks to a looming power unit failure risk, cutting his Grand Prix Sunday short.
The Saturday sprint at Interlagos wasn’t a walk in the park for Mercedes either. Russell and Lewis Hamilton went all out, burning through those Pirelli tires at an alarming rate. Hamilton, in his usual candid style, described the in-car vibe as “horrible,” predicting a tough Grand Prix, and boy, was he right.
As the race unfolded, Mercedes found themselves slipping down the ranks, scrapping it out with Alpine while Aston Martin and Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari zoomed ahead. Russell, already annoyed about the lack of team orders, got the ultimate bummer – retire the car.
Mercedes spilled the beans, citing rising oil temperatures in the power unit as the culprit. If Russell had soldiered on, there was a real risk of the whole thing going kaput. Hamilton managed a measly P8, tossing a mere four points into the mix – not exactly the weekend they’d want to frame on the wall.
And it wasn’t just Russell facing the struggles. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc bowed out on the formation lap due to hydraulics throwing a fit. Plus, a bunch of others, like Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Alex Albon, and Kevin Magnussen, couldn’t even cross the finish line. The Brazilian GP? More like a rollercoaster of disappointment.
