Mercedes’ George Russell felt a podium was on the cards during Formula 1‘s United States Grand Prix, had he not been forced to start from pit-lane.
Pushing to improve upon sixth place in Saturday’s qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas, Russell crashed hard into the barriers at Turn 19.
The damage to his upgraded Mercedes was significant, prompting a switch to the previous spec W15 and a pit lane start.
From there, Russell drove an accomplished race, starting on the Hard tyre and executing a one-stop strategy to charge through to sixth.
The pace shown on race day, and the fluctuating performance from his upgraded Mercedes that saw him second in Sprint qualifying and crashing out of GP qualifying, had Russell pondering what might have been on Sunday.
“I had no idea what to expect going into today, but clearly the pace was pretty good,” Russell told media including Motorsport Week post-race.
“I’m still confident that the upgrades were working as expected and I really think we could have been fighting for probably a podium if we’d have been in a normal starting position.”
In the Sprint, Russell, with the upgraded Mercedes started from the front row but slipped to fifth – which he chalked down to overusing his tyres rather than poor car performance.
“So I think in the Sprint race I just destroyed my tyres, but clearly in those early laps yesterday we had the pace and we’ve shown glimmers of really strong pace this weekend,” he said.
Russell calls for permanent stewards amid Bottas incident
Russell’s charge through the field in the United States GP had a minor bump in the road.
The Briton was penalised to the tune of five seconds for forcing Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas wide at Turn 12.
“What,” was the loud exclamation over team radio when Russell was informed of his fate, with Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff replying “total joke George with the penalty, total joke.”
Luckily, the penalty didn’t affect his final position, but Russell questioned the decision regardless.
Russell agreed, having not been ahead of Bottas at the apex, that his penalty was correct “by the letter of the law,” before adding whether permanent year-round stewards would help everyone be on the same page to change such rulings.
“My penalty with Valtteri [Bottas], the rule states if you’re not ahead of the apex and you push someone wide you get a penalty,” Russell began.
“So by the letter of the law my penalty was correct, but anybody who knows anybody watching it knows it was not correct.
“So I don’t really know how we move forward. I think we’d probably all want to see the same stewards all year long so that the drivers and the stewards can all be on the same page and that we can apply common sense when needed rather than having to follow the letter of the law.”
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