🃏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 H🔯amilto𓃲n was forced into a lap one retirement for just the sixth time in his 17-year career. 

Having watched the dramatic collision back, Hamiltꦑon later tweeted to take “full responsibility” for the incident, which is und♑er 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 d🍸irector 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 aftern🐈oon 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 Mercede🐼s had discussed the possibility of Hamilton, on soft tyres, makin💞g 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 throug♏h,” he explained. 

“Obviously they had different start tyre performance. In the moment, they just ran out of spa🐻ce. 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 be꧟forehand.”