Mercedes believes it can learn from the clash between its two drivers in Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix in the same way it did after its 2016 Spanish Grand Prix collision.
Mercedes were aiming to convert second and third on the grid into a solid points haul, but disaster struck when George Russell and Lewis Hamilton made contact on Lap 1.
Hamilton, starting on the Soft tyre, got a lightning launch away from the line and attempted to swing around the outside of the winding right-hand Turn 1 to overtake both Russell and polesitter Max Verstappen.
However, Russell ended up sandwiched between his team-mate and the Red Bull, prompting contact between the Mercedes duo that sent Hamilton out of the race.
Although Russell recovered from the back to fourth, the Briton was convinced that Mercedes squandered an opportunity to potentially beat Verstappen to victory.
Expanding on the incident, Mercedes Communications Director Bradley Lord told F1: “In the strategy meeting we discussed the likely [tyre] offset between the two drivers and how that would be handled.
“Obviously, what happened was not part of the plan, but certainly not intentional from either side.”
But Lord has echoed the comments of Hamilton, who insisted that the drivers’ relationship remains intact and the matter will be discussed behind closed doors.
“I think rule number one for any racing team is that the two cars don’t make contact,” he continued. “That is something the drivers have bought into just like every other member of the team is as well.
“To be one car in the gravel, one in the pit lane and then plumb last at the end of Lap 1, is about as badly a first lap can go. But how we deal with it, we’ll talk about it behind closed doors. I think both drivers have been very magnanimous afterwards and we’ll talk about it and then put it behind them.
“I think the feature of this season has been how well they’ve worked together to try and lead the team back from the difficult position in which we started with the car, and I’m sure they’ll continue to do that for the last five races and hopefully secure P2 in the [Constructors’] Championship.”
Lord was on media duties for the second straight weekend in the absence of Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who is currently recovering from knee surgery.
The highly-debated clash on Sunday evening drew comparisons to the 2016 Spanish GP crash that took both Hamilton and then team-mate Nico Rosberg out of the running.
Lord thinks that the German marque can draw from the lessons it took from that day in Barcelona and utilise that experience to move on from this latest episode.
When asked about that particular incident, Lord said: “I remember that one. I think experiences like 2016 and others that we’ve had over the years, actually it’s a great shared experience of how as a team we approach those moments and sort of learn from them and work through them as well.
“We have our racing intent, our sort of shared document that we all buy into in terms of how we approach races as a team, how we try to maximise the team’s points-scoring, and the drivers have bought into that along with everybody else. That’s really the basis for how we talk about things and move forward.”
