Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
George Russell finished sixth, whilst Lewis Hamilton retired from the 2024 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix. Lewis lined up P17 on the grid with George starting from the pit lane after the team had to work through the night to repair his car following Saturday’s Qualifying crash. Lewis made a strong start and gained five positions into turn one. Unfortunately, his race ended early as a gust of wind at turn 19 caught him out and left him beached in the gravel.
Meanwhile, George showed a strong pace on the hard tyre, cycled through the field, and extended his first stint to lap 40. After boxing for the Medium compound and serving a five-second time penalty for forcing another driver off track, he used his fresher rubber to close on Sergio Perez for P6. He passed the Red Bull into turn 12 on the penultimate lap to cap a solid recovery drive.
George Russell
I was pleased with how today went from my side. We didn’t know what the race would bring in terms of opportunities, but going from the pit lane to P6 and finishing ahead of Red Bull meant that we made the best of a difficult situation. We had a good pace throughout, particularly on the Hard compound tyre. We were able to extend that first stint and give ourselves fresher rubber with which to attack in the closing laps.
We will work hard in the coming days to analyse the weekend as a whole. The car can still be tricky at times; Lewis doesn’t end races in the gravel as we saw today. When we find its sweet spot, it is capable of solid performances, but it is difficult to deliver consistently. I think the car had the potential to fight for the podium this weekend, but we need to widen its operating window. We will, therefore, be looking to bounce back next weekend in Mexico.
Lewis Hamilton
I had a great start and thought we were in for a positive race. I was just bringing the tyres in when I had the accident, which was a really strange moment. I wasn’t pushing too hard, but the car bounced a little into turn 19; I lost the back end, and that was that. As I turned in, we measured a large gust of wind, up to 40 kph, which likely didn’t help. George had a similar spin to me yesterday, so we will work hard to analyse both incidents and see what we can learn from them.
I am sorry to the whole team who have worked so hard to bring these updates, but onwards and upwards from here. Hopefully, we can get the car in a better place next week in Mexico. We will all be working incredibly hard to do so.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
It has been a tough weekend overall here in Austin. We see that there is pace in the car, as was shown on Friday and with George in the race today, but we are still dealing with its inconsistency. That is not something unique to us, though. Different teams have come into and out of form throughout the season, but it is something we will be working hard to improve over the final five races of the season.
The positive from today was that George was quick throughout and produced a good fightback from his pit lane start. The team in the garage worked hard last night to get the car ready for the race, but we had a large workload to get through as we had to revert to specification. George drove a strong race and was particularly quick on the Hard compound. That enabled us to extend his first stint and ultimately claim P6 in the final few laps. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing day for Lewis. He wasn’t pushing, but a gust of wind, combined with the dirty air from the car ahead, and he lost the car. We need to look at that and what happened with George yesterday to understand why the car reacted like that. Lewis Hamilton is not a driver who loses a car like that on lap two of a race, so there is something there that we need to understand.
