Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team took their first victory of the 2022 season at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, and it was done in style with George Russell winning his first race and Lewis Hamilton driving a brilliant race to complete a one-two finish for the team, for the first-time since Imola 2020.
Russell started on pole after an impressive performance in the sprint race on Saturday and managed to stay ahead into turn one in front of his team-mate Hamilton. It was a confident and mature drive from the young Brit, who was in control of the race from lap one until seventy-one. It was a special occasion for Russell who claimed his first win in Formula 1, potentially beginning a new era for Mercedes getting back to race wins in the new era of cars.
Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin was quick to praise Russell, and hopes the win is the first of many.
“One nice thing about having a year without wins is you remind yourself just how special they are and just how good they feel. What a result; huge congratulations to George who drove a perfect race – he looked so comfortable at the front, and this will no doubt be first of many.“
Shovlin went on to speak about Hamilton’s race, which was much more eventful than his team-mates, but he still managed to come home for a second placed finish. Hamilton made contact with Verstappen early on in the race and fell down the order, but thanks to a number of excellent overtaking moves and a clever strategy, he was able to climb back in to second and put pressure on Russell after a late safety car.
“Also, a fantastic recovery for Lewis, we thought he’d have been out of the picture after the collision with Max (Verstappen) but he put in a brilliant drive to get back to P2.“
Mercedes shift their focus to Abu Dhabi next week and will hope to grow even more motivation ahead of the 2023 season.
“The team back in Brackley and Brixworth have done an amazing job to make this possible, we had no idea we’d be able to achieve this given where we were at the start of the year but today, we’re glad it’s just a long season as we’d not have wanted to miss this result.
“The engineers and drivers clearly did a good job getting the car in the right place with just a single session on Friday, we were using the tyres well and great to see that the pace was strong.
“We’re looking forward to the last round in Abu Dhabi; it’s been a tough season for the entire team, but it’s given us even more motivation for 2023 to make sure we can hit the ground running.“