Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has put the onus on Oscar Piastri for why George Russell failed to finish the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix any higher.
The Brit finished second behind Max Verstappen in the Sprint Race on Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas, partly capitalising on McLaren’s double DNF.
Russell was three tenths off Verstappen at the finish, and then qualified fourth for the Grand Prix, and although three tenths off the Dutchman, he was only two hundredths off second place.
However, Russell did not get off the line as rapidly as he would have wished, and ended up behind both Piastri and Lewis Hamilton.
It set the tone for the rest of the race, with Russell coming home in sixth place, four seconds off the Australian at the chequered flag.
After the race, Allison played down the idea that the team had changed its set-up for the W16 for the worst, saying it felt that any big changes were not deemed necessary.
“Well, everyone changes their cars [between the Sprint and GP qualifying],” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“We made some minor changes to our own car to try to make it more competitive in qualifying, having learnt a little bit more as you go through the weekend.
“But everyone’s doing that, so I guess that you could get changes in competitiveness if other people had struck lucky in those adjustments.
“But we didn’t really see vast changes in our own car as a result of what we did. I can’t speak for what the others managed to achieve.”
Mercedes: Being stuck behind Piastri put paid to any notion of higher finish for Russell
Allison added that being stuck in Piastri’s dirty air and the hot surface of the COTA layout was a huge contributing factor in why Russell was unable to finish any higher, a disappointment given his victory at the previous round in Singapore.
“And I think probably the more realistic thing for assessing the competitiveness is… with the surface overheating that comes on the tyres at that track, you sort of go at the pace of the person in front of you,” he said.
“And in the Sprint race, we had Verstappen in front of us. And you could see George was able to keep up with Verstappen there and have a decent run of things.
“But in the main race, we got away off the line OK, but didn’t come out of the first corner well. And then we’re stuck behind Piastri, who was having a tough weekend. And we’re sort of stuck at Piastri’s pace then.
“So the competitiveness is very much linked by who you’re following rather than your car in free air.”
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