Mercedes deputy team principal, Bradley Lord explains why George Russell was pitted under the VSC at the weekend.

The German team was one of several that split strategies for the opening phase of the race, with Kimi Anotnelli starting on mediums and his teammate on hards.

When the VSC was deployed Antonelli and third lace Max Verstappen pitted, while Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly stayed out.

At the time, Leclerc had been running fourth and sixth, both on hards, like Russell who they were sandwiching. However, Mercedes opted to pit the Briton also.

Asking if the mediums that had been fitted would get him to the end he was told "negative" and indeed he pitted again 14 laps later.

So, why didn't Mercedes extend Russell's opening stint as was the case with most hard runners.

"The VSC worked very differently for George," explains Lord, "it fell at the worst possible time for him given that he'd started the race on hards and was looking to run long and capitalise on any events later in the race.

"He headed into the race starting on the hard tyre from P6 with a plan to do a one-stop," he continues. "When the VSC came out he was the second car running on the hard tyre behind Leclerc's Ferrari. Therefore we called for George to do a 'box opposite to Leclerc'.

"Why? Because had we not done so he would have simply followed Leclerc to the finish," Lord explains. "The opportunity to undercut was very, very limited, and the opportunity to overtake was almost non-existent for cars on similar age tyres. So we put George onto the medium.

"We knew that medium wasn't going to be able to do 43 laps to the end," he admits, "but in doing something different, so George did a 20-lap stint, and then we jumped back onto the hard tyre, because you wanted to be on that hard tyre for as much of the race as possible.

"George then unleashed some really impressive performance. He was going quick enough that he actually pulled Leclerc into the pits probably earlier than Ferrari had wanted to and so that pulled Leclerc in, gave Kimi the free air up front but also then George was pressuring Leclerc in those final laps on that soft tyre that was quite fragile, and actually ended the race only 0.7 seconds behind.

"After the race George was very pragmatic," says Lord, "he said he didn't really think it mattered what we'd have done, whether we'd have left him out or boxed him, he was always likely to finish in P5 given the difficulty of overtaking at the Madring."