George Russell admitted he and Lewis Hamilton will have to split their strategies to give Mercedes the best chance of winning the Brazilian Grand Prix.
For the first time this year, the two Silver Arrows will start a race on the front row. That happened courtesy of a dream Sprint race for them, which Russell won after a battle with Max Verstappen while Hamilton finished third.
Carlos Sainz was second, but the Ferrari racer has a five-place grid penalty for taking a new power unit this weekend. It means the Mercedes drivers will have the opportunity to work together to keep the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Sergio Perez behind them in the early stages of the race.
Both will be keen to be the one to secure Mercedes' first victory of the year. And Russell made it clear they will be allowed to compete with one another. "There definitely won't be any team orders," said the 24-year-old.
"But between the two of us, we will definitely be strategic to try and get that win for the team. As we saw in Mexico, we both did the same strategy and ultimately it affected us both. Sitting here right now, we probably don't know what the right strategy is going to be. We'll race each other fairly, for sure.
"I'm sure we'll probably be splitting the strategies to try and cover all options and hopefully one of us comes away happy. We both recognise, based on recent experience, we're probably going to have to go two separate ways."
Hamilton was also keen to drill home the point that, even though he will want to win the race himself, there will be no funny business from either of them which could risk Mercedes throwing a potential victory away. "Of course, we'll drive carefully and clean," said the seven-time world champion.
"We've just always got to just have at the core of it, at the front of our mind, it's the team, getting the result for the team. But of course, individually, we'll do our best to try and get the best result."
On Saturday, Russell and Hamilton were served a timely reminder of what can happen if things go wrong between team-mates. During the Sprint, Alpine racers Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon collided and ruined each others' races, earning both a public dressing-down from team principal Otmar Szafnauer.
