Hamilton and Russell were seeking tow from Sainz when they collided – Mercedes · RaceFans

Mercedes have shed further light on the bizarre collision between its two drivers which occured during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

George Russell was given a formal warning by the stewards after making contact with his team mate Lewis Hamilton on the pit straight. The pair were overtaking Carlos Sainz Jnr's Ferrari at the time.

The team's head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin said the incident occured because both drivers were trying to use Sainz's car to get a slipstream to improve their lap times.

"The drivers were trying to find a car finishing a lap in order to get a slingshot starting the lap themselves," said Shovlin in a video released by the team . "So that will give them more straight-line speed.

"You can find around a tenth, maybe a little bit more on the straight. That car that was finishing then peels in and they can then conduct the rest of the lap in clear air."

However the two Mercedes drivers were using different approaches to prepare their tyres before beginning a lap. Hamilton caught up to Sainz from behind while Russell was further ahead and dropped back, which put them on a collision course.

"The issue was that George and Lewis both tried to pick up Sainz as that slingshot," said Shovlin. "So Lewis got onto the back of him around turn 10. As he then came round to start the lap, George was waiting because he knew that Sainz was coming, not realising that Lewis was just behind."

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The team waited until after Sunday's race to begin looking into what went wrong, said Shovlin. "At the race track in Barcelona, we were very keen to make sure we focussed on the race itself, not worry about what went wrong in qualifying.

"Now that we're back here at the factory, we'll sit down, we'll look at how we need to change our communication to make sure that we don't confuse the drivers by not giving them the whole picture."

The two drivers brushed off the incident quickly, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told media including RaceFans at the track on Saturday. "They didn't even mention it," he said. "I just had a chat with George about the car, there was not a minute of talking about the incident."

He dismissed comparisons between the clash, which did not end either driver's participation in qualifying, and the first-lap collision between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at the same circuit seven years earlier.

"It wasn't shades of 2016," said Wolff. "I wish we would be the situation of 2016 where we were losing both cars in lap one because we were so quick and fighting for a win. At the end, it's a trivial incident that just looked silly."

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