George Russell was furious that Mercedes told him to abort a lap which he believes would have given him the quickest time in Q3.

His race engineer Marcus Dudley told him to abandon the lap as he expected the track conditions would continue to improve. However they deteriorated and Russell ended up second behind Lando Norris. Russell’s five-place grid penalty means he will start seventh.

However Wolff believes Russell would still have been second-fastest even if he had completed the lap he was told to abandon, because he was so close to Alexander Albon’s Williams.

“That was a difficult and tricky session where sometimes it’s a 50-50 call,” said Wolff. “George was absolutely the quickest through the session and all sessions and should have been on pole.

“But at the end, we’re trying to do our best, he was 80 milliseconds ahead of Norris but in the gearbox of Albon. So I’m not sure we should have aborted the lap, but I think it would have been P2. But in any case, everybody is trying to their best.”

Debriefing Quali day at Interlagos 🇧🇷 We know what we need to do tomorrow 👊 pic.twitter.com/VgGggWv0Vf

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 7, 2026

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