Russell blames "dirty air" for his disappointing race in Mexico City

Having finished seventh in Mexico City after a chaotic race, Mercedes driver George Russell was left to blame the dirty air for the disappointing result which saw the Silver Arrows lose second place to Ferrari in the constructors' championship.

Although Mercedes had hope for more, the 71-lap encounter in Mexico became a a tricky race to manage for them.

Russell lost position at the start in the chaos at Turn 1 before dropping further behind when Max Verstappen banged wheels with Lewis Hamilton.

The Briton asked Mercedes to apply team order which the Silver Arrows agreed to, but Russell was not able to capitalize on that and had to give the position back to his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the closing stages of the race.

The Bologna-born driver made no mistake but complained about tyre degradation in the dirty air, finishing sixth, just a place ahead of Russell.

Reflecting on his race in Mexico City, Russell said: "It was not an easy race today. I lost position at turn one and we were battling from there, stuck in a train of cars that we were not quite fast enough to pass.

"That was a shame as I think if we had managed to gain a few places on the first lap then we could have had a much more positive result than P6. It is so difficult to follow in the dirty air and, when in clean air, our pace was decent.

"We opted to invert the cars in our second stint; we were in a train behind Bearman, and the tyre degradation was getting worse due to that," Russell continued.

Offering his thougths on the team order, Russell noted: "We will review whether that was the best decision or not but ultimately, we didn’t have the pace today to battle forward and both George and I lost out to Piastri who seemed to have better speed.

"Our focus is now on Brazil and, with four races to go, getting back ahead of Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship," concluded the Briton.