"George fighting him negated all of that": Ted Kravitz on how Mercedes could have avoided the Lewis Hamilton-George Russell crash at Qatar

F1 pundit Ted Kravitz believes that the Mercedes AMG F1 team could have avoided the lap one crash between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell if they simply followed their plans.

The seven-time world champion collided with his teammate on turn 1 after going in too much towards the apex and retiring from the race, while Russell sustained damage to his car but continued to finish P4.

Appearing on the Sky Sports podcast, Kravitz claimed that both drivers and the team had discussed that they were on different strategies and should have followed that. He said:

"They were on different strategies. Surely, they have discussed that Lewis was on a different strategy on the soft tire in the first stint? And his race really depended, because he had so few laps on his medium and his hard tires, on getting in front of Max and making that soft tire work for him, maybe slowing down the pace on that soft tire and getting a good stint length out of the soft tire.

"Because if you include the soft tires, he actually had some good stint length in his allocation, but then George fighting him, negated all of that. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t have been the Mercedes strategy to say, ‘Okay, guys, this is what we’re going to do. Lewis is on the soft, he is going to come around you, George, you are not going to fight him and he is going to try and get Max’."

Karun Chandhok gives his take Mercedes collision on Lap 1

Former F1 driver Karun Chandhok stated that it would have been complicated for Mercedes to negate the start of the race despite their drivers being on different compounds of tires.

He pointed out that at the start of the race, drivers are generally reliant on their competitors and it would have been difficult to think about pre-race agreements just getting off the line.

Chandhok said:

“I think it’s very hard to orchestrate that off the start of the race. At the end of the day, you’re so reliant on how different people get off the line, you can’t arrive at the first corner of the race and be looking in your mirrors to see, ‘Oh, I’m here, the first corner, where’s my team-mate? I need to back off, let him pass’."

It would have been fascinating to see how Mercedes executed their race had both their drivers not crashed into each other on Lap 1. They certainly had the pace to challenge McLaren for the double podium finish.