Did Mercedes give preference to Lewis Hamilton over George Russell in the 2023 F1 Bahrain GP? Andrew Shovlin clarifies

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has explained why the team decided to pit Lewis Hamilton before George Russell.

The young Brit complained of losing grip on his tires while he was defending from a fast Fernando Alonso during the F1 Bahrain GP on Sunday. He asked through the team radio if his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was a second ahead of him, was deliberately slow or was facing tire degradation the same way as him.

In a post-race debrief on YouTube, Shovlin explained:

"George had a bit more degradation, so he came on the race to say that his tires were dropping. Now, a lap or so later, Lewis radioed to say he was also suffering from degradation. But almost always when you've got your two cars racing together, you stop the lead car first."

"The reason you do is because if you stop the second car first, he's always gonna undercut the other and you've inverted the cars."

“We’re the fourth fastest team now" - Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton analyzed his Bahrain GP performance, where he finished P5 behind Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. Speaking to F1.com in his post-race interview, he said:

“I genuinely loved the racing. I had a great start, got Fernando in Turn 4 and I was like, ‘Oh jeez, this is a great start to the race.' It felt like one of my better opening laps. Then I was just sliding around. I had so much understeer at the beginning, I took so much wing out, I couldn’t get around some of the corners and I just couldn’t keep up with the guys ahead."

“My middle stint was good and then at the end, I was so close to catching Carlos [Sainz for the fourth position], but [it was] not good enough. We definitely can’t fight them at the moment – they were much quicker than us, as were the Astons. We’re the fourth fastest team now, as opposed to the third last year. We’re going backwards, [so] we really have a lot of work to do to close that gap.”

Despite Hamilton's comments about Mercedes being the fourth-fastest car after Bahrain, they sit in P3 in the constructor's championship after the first race of the season.

Both Mercedes drivers were able to finish the race despite finishing behind Ferrari's Carlos Sainz after Charles Leclerc's retirement from the race during the latter stages.