George Russell takes issue with strategy which he believes cost him track position, and therefore victory, in Spain.

Such was the Briton's dominance throughout the weekend and up to the moment that the starting lights went out, a sceptic might have wondered whether the players were acting out a script.

Holding off Lewis Hamilton at the start, Russell led the first phase of the race, but, despite assurances from his team was concerned with a strategy which he believed cost him track position to the Ferrari driver and also "exposed" him to his own teammate.

Running a three-stop strategy, Hamilton passed Russell, whilst subsequently benefitting from the almost exquisite timing of the VSC period.

Speaking post-race, Russell admitted his unhappiness with the decision to pit him on Lap 13 in reaction to Hamilton's undercut.

"Well Lewis had really great pace, if I was in the race on my own and there was no other drivers and I was doing a two-stop," he said. "I would not have pitted on lap 13," he added.

"But you're never in the race on your own you're reacting to your competitors and they put us in a very challenging position to pit this early.

"The truth is my pace wasn't quite strong enough today but I do think I could have just mirrored his strategy on the three-stop but that would have maybe left me exposed to Kimi on the two-stop, and maybe I wouldn't have been happy about that in the end so I need to go through with my team.

"It did cost us a little bit but I think, Lewis with the VSC was always destined to come out ahead to be honest," he admitted. "He came out with a two-second gap we probably lost a second, but he just had really great pace today.

"It was really impressive to see, even in the first stint. I was at one point I was expecting to see Kimi make the move on Lewis and I was watching the TV screens, and you know Lewis just seemed to have it covered.

"18 more points than I've achieved in the last two races, I would take the positives from that," he continued, "and I'll take the positives from the weekend as a whole.

"The race was feeling good to be honest, I felt solid at the start and just slowly edging out a gap to Lewis and he obviously committed quite early to the three-stop and then we covered but stuck on the two-stop. From that point onwards it was quite challenging and just didn't have the pace and wasn't feeling too happy with the hard tyre."