George Russell responds to Toto Wolff team radio message after Brazil GP qualifying

George Russell believes he would have put his Mercedes W17 on pole position in a wet qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix were it not for the team’s instruction to abandon the lap he was on just moments before the rain intensified.

Russell had to settle for second place behind McLaren’s Lando Norris.

George Russell explains Mercedes’ costly qualifying decision at Interlagos

Qualifying at the Interlagos circuit took place in the rain on Saturday, leading to an 84-minute delay as several showers swept through the circuit.

Norris set the pace in Q1 while Russell topped the timesheet in Q2.

The Mercedes driver looked to challenge Norris for pole position late in Q3 with Norris on provisional pole.

Russell, despite being on a lap that was close to Norris’ time, was told by his race engineer Marcus Dudley to back off to create a gap to Alex Albon.

Moments later the rain intensified, and Russell lost the opportunity to challenge for pole position.

The Briton vented his frustration over the radio to the team.

Russell: “Mate, you ****ing told me to back off! What the hell?”

Wolff: “George, you’re P2.”

Russell: “P2? I don’t want to be P2, I want to be P1. That was a P1 lap.”

Russell finished qualifying two-tenths behind pole-sitter Norris and looked notably dejected as the McLaren driver celebrated his third successive pole position at the Interlagos circuit.

Russell said he would need to speak with Mercedes to understand why the team misjudged the weather and told him to back off.

“I think it was just a bit of miscommunication,” he said.

“I need to speak with the team because we believed we’d get another lap before the rain came in.

“So, I was on a really strong lap and I was asked to back off because I caught up with Albon, and then obviously the rain came. So yeah, it was very disappointing.

“Need to understand how it happened and why we got that wrong.

“But I felt very strong the whole session. Similar to Lando, I had more confidence in the wet than I had in the dry.

“But yeah, definitely felt pole was there for the taking.”

Russell made it clear that he was in no way blaming his race engineer Dudley for telling him to make a gap to Albon, after all, Dudley relies on others to give him the correct information.

“They’ve got the weather forecast in front of them and I don’t,” he said. “And, you know, this is where you need that trust and you’re relying on one another.

“Obviously, it was the wrong decision, and it was a decision that I think as soon as it was made, I think we knew it was the wrong one because already they could actually feel the rain pouring harder.

“So, we need to understand, you know, we’re relying on a lot of systems, and we can’t point the finger at somebody. We need to understand why we made that decision and whether our systems were telling us what we needed to know, because you’re relying on the radar.

“But it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for me, and it’s not my engineer’s fault. He’s relaying information. He’s ultimately the one who passes the message on, but he’s got 12 people talking to him, giving him that information to relay on.

“So, we just need to understand why we made that decision.”

However, Wolff, speaking to Sky Sports after qualifying, defended Mercedes’ call.

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“If we were to have a crystal ball to know whether you should back off or not, that would be helpful,” said the team principal.

“It was a difficult one, a 50-50 call. He was running into Albon.

“He was 18 milliseconds up on Norris at that stage. I don’t think it would have been enough for pole, but he drove perfectly all session and merited to be on pole.”

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