Following a mid-ra🔴ce Safety Car, Hamilton, who had 𝓡pitted for medium tyres, found himself on the back of teammate Russell, who was running on slower hards. 

• 'The ultimate test' - Can Russell keep Hamilton behind in F1 2023?

Despite appearing to be the faster Mercedes at the time, Ham💦ilton was unable to pass Russell, who eventually eased clear and finished fourth ahead of the seven-time world champion. 

With both Mercedes losing ground to 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Fernando Alonso’s third-placed Aston Martin and with Ha🍃milton not able to maximise his fresher tyres in Russell’s dirty air the♈re were suggestions Mercedes should have swapped their drivers, but no instruction came.

There was some uncertainty over team radio at Mercedes during this period but Russell later 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:clarified the “confusion”. 

Speaking in a de💯brief video after Saudi Arabia, Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott revealed why the team felt there was no need to use team orders. 

"First of all you’ve got to b𒉰ear in mind that the Safety Car was pretty early so it was going to be a♌ very long final stint,” Elliott said. 

“Although Lewis came out on the faster tyre theoretically the Medium, 🌱by the ﷺend of the stint the Hard tyre was going to be a much quicker tyre. 

“So, although Lewis could put pressure on George initially he wasn’t going to be able to do that at the end of the stint and so there probably wasn’t a clear which ty🐓re is faster or slower if you loꦺok at the full stint length.” 

Elliott underlined that Mercedes' position on allowing their dr🥂ivers to race each other freely remains unchanged. 

“We've always let our drivers race, that's just the way we have operated as a te🎐am and we didn’t think we were going to be in a position where favouring one driver over the other would get us in a better position in the race,” he added. “So, we just let them race."

After the opening two races, Hamilton sits fifth in the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:F1 2023 championship standings, one position and two points ahead of Russell. ༒;