Mercedes promise review of ‘silly’ Hamilton Russell collision

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has promised to hold a review of what he has described as a “silly” collision between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Wolff has conceded there was a “miscommunication” between the British pair at the end of the second period of qualifying at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

An attempted high-speed overtake from Hamilton down the start-finish straight culminated in the duo banging wheels, with the seven-time F1 champion forced onto the grass and claiming the move from Russell was “dangerous”.

Russell was later investigated by the stewards for an abnormal change of direction but only given a formal warning as the stewards believed his mitigating circumstances.

Addressing the matter, Wolff said: “It’s all down to miscommunication because drivers in the same team don’t want to crash into each other on their final lap in qualifying.

“So it was just an unfortunate situation that George just launched the lap, and Lewis saw it as his last opportunity and didn’t think that George was on that lap.

“It looks silly but it wasn’t. It was just miscommunication.”

Whilst Russell missed out on a place in Q3, Hamilton sustained damage to his front wing that necessitated a change.

Given Hamilton’s pace in the W14 up until that point, Wolff feels the incident “possibly cost him P2” on the grid behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Wolff reiterated the fact “team-mates should never collide”, adding: “This is a team effort and there is something in our communications we need to review after that incident to avoid it in the future.

“Again, it was a miscommunication – they didn’t know the other one was there, but I’m not going to tell you someone didn’t do his job because we all do our best.”

Asked as to his initial thoughts on the matter when he saw it unfold and whether there were shades of 2016 when Hamilton and then team-mate Nico Rosberg took each other out on the first lap, Wolff smiled and said: “No, it wasn’t shades of 2016.

“I wish we would be in the situation of 2016 where we were losing both cars in lap one because we were so quick in fighting for the win.

“In the end, it’s a trivial incident that just looked silly.”