Mercedes regret George Russell decision after snubbing Max Verstappen approach

Mercedes have admitted they regret not taking the same path as at last weekend's . The Dutchman secured his first victory of the year at Suzuka, while continued a consistent start to the season in fifth place.

Verstappen's victory was built on the back of a superb qualifying lap which saw him snatch pole position from rival . On race day, he made use of track position to keep his rival at bay and take a win which would have surely been impossible had he not started ahead.

Reflecting on their own approach to that qualifying session in Japan, have admitted they got their tactics wrong. In a video released by the team, technical director James Allison said the key turned out to by the warming up of the tyres, to which the Silver Arrows told Russell to take the opposite approach to what Verstappen and his team did.

Allison said: "On our final run - and it was definitely not the right thing to do - we urged a slightly cooler start to the lap for George. He felt, 'No, that's not what I need to do, I need to be hitting it hard'.

"The consequence was the tyre wasn't ready in that first part of the lap. So we lost a load of time there, which meant it was sort of irrelevant what happened in the second part of the lap. We never got the benefit there either because the lap was just uncompetitive.

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"If you looked at the cars that prospered - and indeed the lap that Max pulled out the bag to take a pretty impressive pole, he really hammered the last sector of his out-lap, really getting the tyres in good, warm shape so that he could attack the first part of the lap and then just try to hang on in the second part.

"We should have done that. And if we had done that, we would have definitely been better-placed on the grid." Instead, Russell qualified fifth and stayed in that same position throughout the race, which was devoid of much overtaking action.

The asphalt surface at Suzuka was a smooth one because of resurfacing works carried out prior to this year's event. But at the upcoming , teams will encounter a much rougher track.

Championship leaders McLaren could not stop Verstappen last weekend but Allison believes the different conditions in Bahrain will play into their hands. He added: "We can expect that it will be a track that is going be way harder on tyre degradation than the other tracks we've been at so far. The asphalt there is very, very coarse and rough.

"The asphalt is quite old - in fact, it’s older than Kimi [Antonelli]. The track hasn't been resurfaced for a long, long time. The consequence is as asphalt gets older it gets more jaggedy and that jaggedy asphalt cut the tyres up. It also makes the tyres overheat far more easily, so we can expect that this weekend will be a very challenging one from the point of view of managing rear tyre temperatures and front tyre temperatures, and managing the degradation rate of the tyres by really trying to look after them around the lap.

"If we look across the grid I would say that the McLarens probably have this as an advantage over the rest of the teams. But from the winter testing and the pace we saw relative to the Red Bull and the , then we absolutely think we can be in there pitching for a podium and maybe better if the orange cars slip up."