Hamilton twice battled wheel-to-wheel wi🦂th Mercedes teammate Russell on his way to finishing fifth at Suzuka, while the younger Briton came hoꦿme seventh after gambling on the alternative one-stop strategy. 

The pair nearly collided during a duel that saw both run wide at Spoon, prompting a fiesty radio message from Russell, who asked “are we fighting each other or the others?”. 🌺;

In the closing stages, Mercedes instructed Rꦇussell to move aside fo🌠r Hamilton, who was charging through the field on fresher tyres, leaving the former unhappy. 

“If you want to play the team game… he pushed me off the traꦓck earlier,” a frustrated Russell said on the radio. 

Speakingꦐ after the race♐, ex-F1 driver Chandhok noted clear tension between the Mercedes duo. 

“He [Hamilton] is 75 points ahead of Geꦜorge.🎃 He was quite quick to point that out!” Chandhok told Sky.

“ജThere was needle with George. There is a little bit of needle between the two drivers.” 

On Russell’s strategy, Chandhok said: “He didn’t have too much to lose at that point.&nb🎃sp;

“If he did the two-stop which everyone else did, he w🦄ould have ♐ended up in the same place. 

“He was ahead of Alonso, they tried🙈 a gamble, he ended up ahead of Alonso. It was worth a punt, they finished seventh which is where they would have been anyway.” 

1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill said of Russell: “He’s smarting. Don’t forget what happened in Singapo🍒re, he dropped a load of points there🐷. 

“He can see Lewis has gone way ahead in the driver’s champio♑nship. H💜e wants a good result. 

“T💝wo-stop, one-stop, he probably would have ended with the same result, and he has to suck that up.”