Wolff reveals 'dramatic' reason behind Russell retirement

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has revealed the reason why George Russell retired from the Canadian Grand Prix.

The British driver had managed to recover from a crash on lap 13 to sit in a points-paying position, only to be told to retire his W14 in the closing stages.

Russell lost control of his car after running wide at Turn 8, sliding into the wall and leaving damage to the right rear and front wing.

He crawled back to the pits and continued, returning to eighth through strategy, before apparent brake cooling issues sealed his fate.

Dramatic increase

Asked if the brake issues were as a result of Russell's earlier incident, Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.com: "The oxidation matrixes were high on both cars.

"But after he hit the wall, interestingly the oxidation matrix went dramatically up on the left and at that stage, we felt we wouldn't finish the race so we retired the car."