george russell found out he is the number two on lap 65
mercedes swapped its cars at zandvoort and says the championship had nothing to do with it. the points table disagrees.
the last ever dutch GP gave us plenty to talk about. max verstappen put it in the wall on the banking before the first lap was over (his words: “it caught me out, simple as that”), the race was red flagged, and lando norris won for the second time in a row. but the part i keep coming back to happened on lap 65 of 72, on the mercedes radio.
the setup: norris was leading and kimi antonelli was second when esteban ocon’s haas stopped on track and brought out a virtual safety car. mercedes used it to give antonelli a cheap pit stop. he came out on fresh softs in third, behind george russell, who had stayed out on old hards.
then russell was told to let his teammate through. he questioned it, moved over anyway, and then spent the rest of the race keeping lewis hamilton’s ferrari behind him. he held on to P3 by 0.849 seconds.
afterwards everyone was very grown up about it. russell said kimi “deserved to be P2” and that mercedes drivers on different strategies are “never going to fight”. toto wolff called it “not a difficult decision” and added that “it plays no role who is ahead in the championship or not”.
sure, toto.
to be fair, the call made sense on the day. antonelli was on much newer tyres and would have got past anyway (russell said so himself), and two mercedes fighting each other with both ferraris right behind is how a double podium becomes a P4 and a P5. i can’t even be mad at it, and i am someone who thinks papaya rules were a crime.
but look at the numbers. russell won the sprint on saturday and cut antonelli’s lead to 56 points. without the swap he leaves zandvoort 53 behind. with it he leaves 59 behind, exactly where he started the weekend, and level on 183 with hamilton. after silverstone in july the gap was 25.
that is what the swap really tells you. russell has two wins and three sprint wins this year. his teammate turned 20 on tuesday and has six wins and a 59-point lead with eleven races left. in my beginner’s guide i described a number two driver as the one who ends up assisting the other driver and playing the team game. nobody at mercedes will say that out loud, and after lap 65 nobody needs to.
is the title over? no. 59 points is two bad weekends, and kimi has had those (pole to P15 at silverstone, a retirement in barcelona). but george now needs kimi to have problems. beating him on track is not enough when the pit wall can hand the place back.
next up is monza on 6 september, kimi’s first home race as championship leader. prediction: norris makes it three in a row, unless the mclaren pit wall finds a way to complicate it. see you then.