‘We had discussed it’ - Wolff stand-in reacts to Hamilton-Russell crash

Hamilton retired after a first corner crash with Russell which left the seven-time world champion stricken in the gravel and his Mercedes teammate at the very back of the field. 

Russell staged an impressive recovery drive to fourth, while Hamilton was forced into a lap one retirement for just the sixth time in his 17-year career. 

Having watched the dramatic collision back, Hamilton later tweeted to take “full responsibility” for the incident, which is under investigation. 

"Worst possible start and the worst possible thing that can happen for a race team to see your two cars collide,” said Mercedes communications director Bradley Lord, who along with Jerome D’Ambrosio and Andrew Shovlin, is standing in for Mercedes boss Toto Wolff while he recovers from knee surgery. 

"For sure, on Lap 1 with George at the back and Lewis in the gravel, things didn't look brilliant at all.

"To turn that around with George in P4 and outscoring Ferrari on an afternoon was not something we could have hoped for once we were one lap into the race.

"What might have been is clear to see. We were right on the pace of the McLarens, probably not within striking distance of Max, but there's a double podium that could have been today.

"Ifs, buts and maybes don't really count in this sport, so we will take what we have got and be happy with that, but it could have been so much more.”

Lord revealed Mercedes had discussed the possibility of Hamilton, on soft tyres, making a better start than Russell, who was on mediums, in a pre-race team meeting.

“We discussed it in the morning, it was a scenario that we’d been through,” he explained. 

“Obviously they had different start tyre performance. In the moment, they just ran out of space. George had nowhere to go, Lewis tried to take his line. 

“We saw what happened. Unfortunately these things can happen. You can’t programme everyone even with a discussion beforehand.”