George Russell revealed that the Mercedes squad proposed a “coin toss” to decide which driver got an updated spec of front wing at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton ultimately avoided the peculiar way of deciding which driver got the updated part and instead suggested Russell take on the new front wing.
With that, Russell outperformed his more experienced team-mate in Monaco GP qualifying to the tune of 0.078s en route to a fifth-placed placed result in qualifying.
Hamilton’s decision not to run the front wing was down to the jeopardy posed by the Monaco circuit with the Briton unwilling to risk damaging the one-of-one wing.
“There was one front wing this weekend and it was agreed on Tuesday that we’d do a coin toss and see who got it,” Russell told the Channel 4 F1 broadcast team.
“Lewis said he’d tried it on the sim and was happy for me to use it this weekend, because it doesn’t go without risk.
“If we made a mistake in qualifying and damaged it, obviously that’s one front wing that we won’t ever be able to use again and you’d have to start from the pit lane.
“I was happy to take that risk using it and I thought it was a belated birthday present he gave me, saying I could use it.”
The alarming revelation that an eight-time Constructors’ team is promoting a coin-toss as a viable solution to roll out its upgrades is a peculiar one at best.
Still, despite being dismayed that Russell out-qualified him last Saturday, Hamilton was pleased with the hard work Mercedes personnel at Brackley had been putting in to put performance onto the W15 machine.
“I’m really so happy to see the team’s bringing upgrades and looking forward to see you know the last three races we’ve had upgrades,” Hamilton said.
“This weekend, George’s one was a positive as well so I’ll get that next week and hopefully over the next few races we have some more and we can continue to push and try and close that gap.”
Mercedes sits fourth in the Constructors’ standings on 96 points heading into next week’s Canadian Grand Prix, 88 points behind third-place McLaren.
Russell has brought in 54 points of the Mercedes points haul to Hamilton’s 42 and the duo sit seventh and eight in the Drivers’ standings respectively.
