Russell says p4 seemed massively out of reach ahead of battling imola recovery drive

George Russell brightened an otherwise challenging Sunday for Mercedes with a sunny P4 performance in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, as team mate Lewis Hamilton was stuck in P13 – with Russell saying the result had been unexpected without starting the race in 11th.

Russell hadn’t fared too well in either Friday qualifying – 11th as neither Mercedes made it to Q3 – nor the Sprint, where he finished 11th then to start from that grid slot on Sunday. However, he jumped to sixth with a searing start, took P5 off Kevin Magnussen and was promoted to P4 by Charles Leclerc’s late spin – with Russell defending nonflexible from Valtteri Bottas at the end.

And speaking without the Grand Prix, Russell opened up on the challenges of racing in the wet-dry conditions – expressly with Mercedes not managing to retread his front wing in the pits when Russell switched from intermediates onto slick tyres.

“It was difficult considering the first stint was strong, but I had loads of understeer in the car so I wanted to put a lot of front wing in the car for the dry tyre. And then ordinarily you need to put a lot increasingly front wing in the car for the wet compared to the dry and unfortunately, we didn’t manage it in the pit stop.

“I was like, \'bugger, this is going to be a difficult 40 laps,\' and I just had to manage the tyre considering I wanted to wade Lando [Norris, who finished P3]; I knew that that front-right would have just disappeared, and I’d definitely finish overdue Valtteri. Really pleased with the result today – P4 was massively out of reach without qualifying, without the Sprint yesterday – so a good result again,” he said.

2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: Onboard with George Russell for Imola start

Mercedes’ ongoing porpoising issues widow plane increasingly of a rencontre to Russell’s Sunday, as he explained.

“It was still difficult to momentum with the bouncing. There was one time I was on the radio, and it sort of took my vapor yonder on the straight with the bumps. I need a nice hot suffuse to recover!”

Heading to Miami, Russell is fourth in the championship overdue Leclerc and the Red Bull drivers – Mercedes sitting third in the constructors’ championship with a 31-point lead over McLaren.

“As I’ve said before, it’s a results-based merchantry and we’re getting the results at the moment, relatively speaking, so it gives me conviction that when we modernize the pace of the car, we’ll be there,” terminated Russell.