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Russell left with ‘mixed feelings’ over P3, sees Verstappen as key to win hopes
George Russell admits Max Verstappen could be the key to his chances of winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after being conflicted by his third-place qualifying performance.
Verstappen took pole position from Oscar Piastri by just 0.01s, with Russell 0.113s away from taking his first pole of the season. While happy to be in the top three, the Mercedes driver admits he didn’t feel he had the freedom to take maximum risk on his final qualifying lap after Q3 was interrupted by a red flag, and it left him having to leave a tiny bit more margin than his rivals.
“I've got mixed feelings because I felt there was a bit more on the table,” Russell said. “There's a lot of pressure going into that last lap because Oscar had a lap on the board. I think the run plan that Max did with the two laps was a really good one and one we didn’t really consider. Just having that lap on the board sort of takes the pressure off.
“When you go into Turn 1, you've got to really send it and you're braking at 75 meters. When you've got no lap on the board, it's like, ‘I've got no bailout here if I make the smallest of mistakes.’ So, look, P3 is much better than I thought and to be so close to Oscar. Congrats to Max -- he did a great job. It's going to be interesting tomorrow.”
Despite starting third, Russell is targeting a victory on Sunday that he thinks will be much more realistic if Verstappen can keep Piastri at bay in the opening phase of the race.
“I think it depends on Turn 1, to be honest. Max and I were just talking now. We both recognize McLaren are the standout favorites and definitely have the pace on everybody else. If Oscar gets into the lead, you'll probably see a repeat of Bahrain. If we stay in the order we qualified, I think it could be a tight race until the pit stops.
“The medium tire this year was last year's soft, which only one driver used in the whole race. We saw the tires were too hard in Japan. We've all pushed to have softer tires. Hopefully, it won't make it a slam-dunk one-stop, and there could be a couple of different strategies on the table.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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