George Russell wants a "review" with his Mercedes team after a decision which he feels cost him points at the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Brit finished eighth at Suzuka, three places behind his team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Overall, it was another rather forgettable weekend for the team after similarly uninspiring results at the Singapore Grand Prix a week earlier.
Russell believes he could have done a lot better in Japan had it not been for a strategy decision made by the team. It came just after the rolling restart, as what would be a truncated race finally got going after a two-hour delay caused by the torrential rain.
Many teams took the decision to pit almost straight away to swap onto intermediate tyres with track conditions improving. Mercedes were one of them, calling Hamilton and Russell in at the same time for a double-stack.
Russell had been running in sixth, but lost time waiting for a few seconds in the pit line while his team-mates tyres were changed. It cost him time and places, and caused him to angrily declare over the radio afterwards that it was "the worst decision we ever made".
He was still clearly quite miffed about it after the race, as he told reporters he would be seeking a sit-down with his team to talk about why they chose to make that decision. "We need to review what went on," a visibly irritated Russell said.
"I was right behind Lewis and double stacking, I was just going to lose all the positions. Not really much more to say, very frustrating afternoon – probably could have fought for P5. It was quite enjoyable out there, made some some good overtakes but we need to sit down with the team and see what we could have done better. That was probably at the time not the right thing to do."
Russell later reflected on a bizarre race and difficult two weeks in Asia. He added: "It was a strange afternoon overall – the conditions at the beginning were impossible, not with the grip but in terms of visibility and the amount of spray this generation of cars generates.
"We need to learn the right lessons from the incident with the recovery vehicle on track while we were running behind the safety car. Overall, this has been a difficult double-header for us, and we've not scored the points we should have – so we need to regroup, focus on the final four races, and try to extract everything from the car we have under us."
Russell also had words of praise for Max Verstappen, who confirmed his second drivers' world title after a penalty given to Charles Leclerc at the end of the race. "And of course, congratulations to Max on his second championship; the outcome has been clear for a while, but he and Red Bull have done an exceptional job this year."
