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George Russell said letting his team mate and championship rival overtake him was the correct decision which minimised the risk to their races. Andrea Kimi Antonelli ran ahead of Russell until he made an extra pit stop during a late Virtual Safety Car period. When Antonelli closed on Russell afterwards, Mercedes ordered the pair to swap positions.Russell complied, though it handed Antonelli a six-point swing in the championship fight between the pair of them. That erased the gain Russell made in the previous day’s sprint race. However Russell said letting his team mate by was the correct thing to do for Mercedes. “We’ve always said as a team, when we’re on different strategies, we’re never going to fight and we’re always going to invert, and that’s always just been our rules,” he explained. “The fact is Kimi was ahead of me before the VSC and he tried something different to protect us as a team. He kind of copy-pasted what the Ferraris did.” Although Russell believes there was a chance he could have successfully defended his position from Antonelli – as he later did with Lewis Hamilton, thanks partly to the timing of another VSC period – he also said trying to defend could have compromised his race. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and “Could I have kept him behind? Maybe. But equally it could have been a P5 as well. So, in the end, you know, he deserved to be P2. I think P3 was a fair result for me.” Russell fell behind Antonelli at the start of the race, then got stuck behind Oscar Piastri and never managed to get back on terms with his team mate. “It was tough,” he said. “The first VSC came at a pretty awkward timing for me because I felt really strong on the hard [tyre]. I think Kimi’s and my race was kind of the opposite. I had a tough medium stint, he had a very strong medium stint, then I had a strong hard stint, he was struggling. “But that VSC gave Lewis a free pit stop and obviously Kimi pitted as well. And from there on in, I knew I was going to be under threat. “I was managing enough in the high-speed corners to allow me to be fast in sector three and defending into turn one [Tarzan]. So I was pleased with that performance.” Miss nothing from RaceFans Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here: Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and 2026 Dutch Grand Prix - Mercedes is “clearly not the fastest car on the grid any more” claims Antonelli - Russell defends “fair” decision to let Antonelli into second place - Antonelli says extra pit stop “put George at risk” too - “We weren’t unlucky”: Hamilton tells Ferrari their tactics cost him third place - 2026 Dutch Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres