George Russell was left frustrated after the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, where he watched a strong race lead slip to a fourth-place finish due to an unfortunate pit stop decision.

The Mercedes driver had qualified impressively in P2 and immediately took advantage, seizing the lead from Lando Norris at the first corner. Despite wet conditions and no DRS, Russell managed to hold off the McLaren, staying about a second ahead and controlling the field with confidence.

Things took a turn when Mercedes called him in for fresh tires during a Virtual Safety Car. Norris’s team did the same, hoping to give their driver a similar edge.

However, just after they returned to the track, a red flag came out for Franco Colapinto’s crash, allowing other drivers to pit without losing any time.

This decision handed an advantage to the few who hadn’t yet pitted, including Max Verstappen, who went on to win from 17th on the grid. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly joined him on the podium for Alpine, pushing Russell and Norris out of the top three.

Reflecting on the race, Russell couldn’t help but think about what might have unfolded if he had ignored the call.

“Well, my take is if we’d stayed out, we would have been first at the restart ahead of [Esteban] Ocon, Max [Verstappen] and [Pierre] Gasly,” he told F1 TV.

“Leading from the front is much easier. Where we could have ended up, I don’t know, but I was pretty angry at the time because I wanted to stay out.”

He felt he should have trusted his instincts rather than following the pit call, remembering his choice in Spa, where his own decision to stay out had led him to victory before a later disqualification.

“It was 'box'. I said 'stay out'. It was 'box' again, it was 'stay out', I said. And they said 'box' again. As I said, 'I want to stay out'. And then the last one, you’ve got to go for it,” said Russell quoted by Motorsport.com.

“Sometimes you have to trust your gut. Last time I trusted my gut, it went down pretty well.

“From the cockpit, it was very clear it was going to be a red flag or safety car, because the conditions were undriveable. The rain was not easing. I could see the big black cloud above me.

“And then I had Shov [Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes trackside engineering director] jump on as, like, overruling my engineer to say 'box'.

“We're working as a team, we're trying to make the best decisions in the time.

“Clearly the guys who didn't pit, they finished 1-2-3 and we finished the highest of the drivers who did. So I would take a small slice of satisfaction from that.”

With three races remaining in the 2024 season, Mercedes sits in solidified fourth place in the Constructors' Championship with 382 points, while Russell is sixth best from the drivers, just two points ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.