Lewis Hamilton and George Russell admitted they were mystified by what had happened after they suffered separate problems during the Austin Sprint race.
Russell started Saturday’s Sprint second on the grid and hoped to take the fight to pole-sitter Max Verstappen. But Lando Norris had moved past by the second corner and he ended up dropping to fifth by the end.
That was only one place higher than Mercedes team-mate Hamilton, who did climb a place from his starting position. Both lacked pace, though they suffered different issues with Russell losing grip in his front tyres while the seven-time F1 champion was struggling with the rears.
Other than the weather – it was noticeably hotter in Texas on Saturday than it had been the previous day – neither of them could put their fingers on what had happened. Hamilton said: “I would not say it is a surprise – we have had that problem many a time. The car was feeling good yesterday and we were both on for the first and second row – George was so close to pole.
“Definitely a confusing result in that he had one problem and I had another problem. I had zero pace… We will look into it and there are changes we can make, but it is a lot hotter than it was yesterday so that is obviously part of the reason.”
And Russell added: “I was quick in the beginning and then I had no tyres left. The Ferraris were right behind me and they were not exactly relaxing, so I felt like if I backed up a little bit, they were going to be on my tail.
“I spoke to Lewis after the race and he had no rear tyres left, so we are clearly missing something. It is a little bit hotter today and the first time we have run on these medium tyres. In practice the hard tyre felt great and we had really great race pace.
