Hamilton and Russell went head-to-h♌ead on track on several occasions at Suzuka.

At one po♒inꦓt, both drivers went off the track at Spoon as Hamilton defended the position from Russell.

• Sky commentators quest🐻ion Mercedes strategy: “Why change in the first place?”

The pair’s battle went down to the final laps, with a split in strategy res﷽ulting in convergence at the end of the race. 

Hamilton was able to get past Russell after Mercedes deployed team orders, leaving the latter vulnerable to 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Carlos Sainz behind.

Reflecting on the battle, Bradley Lord - who is acting as a Toto Wolff stand-in alongside Jerome d’Ambrosio - said: “They race each other hard on a hard-racing track. It’s easy to read a lot into those radio messages in the heat of the mo✨ment. As always, we talk about it away from the pressure and the high temperatures of the cockpit in the debrief after. 

“Tha🐻t’s where anything gets tidied up that needs tidying up. The one-stop worked for Lew🐠is. With George, he was ahead of Alonso. It offered an opportunity to Sainz. It didn’t quite work out ultimately but it was worth a gamble.”

Mercedes lost further grou💃nd to Ferrari in the race for second in the constructors’ ch🃏ampionship behind Red Bull.

“It was a battle out there from the point where Lewis had contact with Perez on the straight. It put us on the back🔯 foot, we lost position on Lap 1,” Lord added. “It was a case of how far we could fight back from there.

“Lewis drove to the limit of the car on the two-stop, George rolled the dice on 🔯a one-stop. We tried to see if we c🐭ould make it work. Fifth and seventh is better than sixth and seventh, and it helps to minimise the points difference to Ferrari.”