George Russell says he and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton will probably be free to race after they begin alongside one another on the entrance row of the grid on the Brazilian Grand Prix, however expects the group to separate their methods to face the very best probability of holding off Max Verstappen in third.

Russell secured pole place with victory in Saturday’s dash race at Interlagos, whereas Hamilton, who completed third on the street, will probably be promoted to second on the Sunday’s grid resulting from an engine penalty for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

It’s the first time this yr that the 2 Mercedes drivers have began alongside one another on the entrance row of the grid and could possibly be the group’s greatest probability of successful a race earlier than the tip of the season, with only one race remaining in Abu Dhabi after Brazil.

Mercedes has lengthy had a coverage of not making use of group orders to its drivers in regular racing circumstances, however Russell, who has but to win a grand prix in his profession, believes the group ought to cut up its tyre methods after each drivers missed out on difficult Verstappen for victory on the final race in Mexico.

“There positively will not be any group orders, however between the 2 of us we will certainly attempt to be strategic as a result of we noticed in Mexico that we each tried to do the identical technique and it in the end affected us each,” Russell mentioned. “Sitting right here proper now, we in all probability do not know what the correct technique goes to be, so we’ll race one another pretty for positive and I am positive we will probably be splitting the methods to attempt to cowl all choices.

“Hopefully one among us comes away comfortable tomorrow, however we each recognise based mostly on latest expertise that we should go two separate methods.”

Hamilton mentioned the group’s end result was most essential to him.”Getting a one-two both manner, I’m going to be comfortable personally due to how onerous everyone has labored,” the seven-time champion mentioned. “However after all, George has accomplished an incredible job this yr and will probably be pushing for the win, and naturally we are going to drive rigorously and clear.

“You have simply all the time bought to have on the entrance of our thoughts the group and getting the end result for the group. However individually we are going to do our greatest to get the very best end result.”

The Mercedes drivers will begin forward of Verstappen, who might have a strategic benefit as he nonetheless has two set of recent tender tyres for Sunday’s race, whereas each Mercedes drivers have one recent set of softs and one used set.Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, admitted Pink Bull’s tyre allocation would give Verstappen a stronger strategic hand within the grand prix.”

It is a bonus and we rejigged our programme earlier at the moment to verify we had that additional set when it grew to become clear the medium wasn’t nice,” Shovlin mentioned. “Obviouslly having two new units means you can begin on new after which have the facility of that second new set for the undercut, so it does give them a little bit of a bonus, however the entrance row is sweet benefit for us.”