Following a mid-race Safety Car, Hamilton, who had pitted for medium tyres, found hiꦆmself on the back of teammate Russell, who was running on s🍨lower hards. 

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

Despite appearing to be the faster Mercedes at the time, Hamilton w🎉as 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澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Fernando Alonso’s third-placed Aston Martin and with Hamilton not able to maximise his fresher tyres in Russell’🐟s dirty air there were suggestions Mercedes should have swapped their drivers, but no instruction cameಞ.

There was some uncertainty over team radio at Mercedes during this period but Russell later 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:clarified the “confusion”. 

Speaking in a debrief video after Saudi Arabia, Merce🙈de𝔉s technical director Mike Elliott revealed why the team felt there was no need to use team orders. 

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

“Although L🌊ewis came out on the faster tyre theoretically the Medium, b🧜y the end of the stint the Hard tyre was going to be a much quicker tyre. 

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

Elliott 𒉰underlined that Mercedes' position on allowing their drivers to race each other freely remains unchanged. 🐻;

“We've always let our drivers race, that's just the way we have operated as a team and we didn’t think we were going to be in a posi🦂tion 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澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:F1 2023 championship standings, one position and two points ahead of🍨 Russell.