Jenson Button questioned George Russell over his irritable radio messages to his team during the Mexican Grand Prix.
While the race was devoid of much overtaking action, a tactical battle was playing out at the front. Red Bull had started their drivers on soft tyres, while Mercedes opted for the more durable but slower mediums.
In the early stages it looked like the Silver Arrows had picked the best strategy. The Red Bulls struggled to pull away despite their faster tyres, and pitted for fresh mediums at a point which made it seem unlikely they would be able to reach the end of the race without at least one more visit to the pit lane.
So Mercedes gambled on hard tyres to make sure they could make it to the end, planning to take track position when Red Bull did pit again. But they never did, as they looked after their tyres well and both Russell and Lewis Hamilton powerless to get close enough to attempt an overtake.
Before the change of tyres, Russell was heard on team radio asking for his medium stint to be extended. And once he was on the hards, he was heard repeatedly questioning the team's decision despite being told several times that they were expecting Red Bull to have to pit their drivers again.
While in the end the team was proven wrong, 2009 drivers' champion Button felt the Brit should have been more focussed on the task at hand rather than allowing his attention to be dwelling on strategy decisions and what the team had decided.
"George was really happy on the medium tyre, he wanted to go longer, the team put the hard tyre on and it just didn't work for him," said Button on Sky Sports' Any Driven Monday programme. "It is a tough one. You can shout as much as you want on the radio but there's no other direction from there.
"You've just got to work it hard and see if you can get the tyres working. It's a toughie – maybe they should have gone for the even longer medium tyre and stick on the soft at the end, which we saw work really well for Daniel Ricciardo."
But after the race, Russell had explained that plan probably wouldn't have worked. "In hindsight, starting on the softs and going to the medium was the right thing to do," said the Brit. "Starting on the medium and going to the softs was a bit more difficult because my medium was already quite damaged from the early couple of laps."
