Since taking 10th place at the Russian Grand Prix, in Sochi, George Russell has then struck a series of negative results in the last 5 races, finishing them respectively in 15th, 14th, 16th, 13th and 17th position.
The difficulties that the British driver, future teammate of Lewis Hamilton in Mercedes, is encountering are not only related to the race, but also in qualifying. Even on the flying lap his car is less performing. Recall that for a certain period of the current season, Russell was a regular subscriber to Q2.
Despite failing to score points over the last few races, Williams still looks set to beat Alfa Romeo Racing for eighth place in the Constructors’ World Championship, still having a 12-point lead.
“I think everyone on the team is a little frustrated at the moment,” Russell told Motorsport.com. “I think we need time to understand what has changed.”
“We have some indications. Normally we have had some complicated Sundays, but we have had some great Saturdays that have compensated well. And it is easier to defend a position than to attack for it, given the pace of our car.”
“But for some reason, we lost pace on Saturday as well, so we need to extract the maximum potential from the car in these last two races of the season, to secure eighth position in the Constructors’ World Championship. This, for us, is the main thing “.
George Russell, Williams FW43B
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“In Qatar it was impressive to see how much you can push. It was quite smooth and that allowed us to push really hard. Probably, considering my experience in F1, this was the fastest paced race. It was a lot of fun. , but it didn’t go well for us. Our result wasn’t good. “
“All of this is quite surprising. The only wear I had was linked to the front left. The others could have lasted even if I had decided to drive all the way to the UK with the same compounds, without changing them.”
To date, it seems that Williams’ main problem – which also proved to be in Qatar – is getting the tires in the right window of use. “We struggled to make good use of the tires,” confirmed Russell.
“If we look at free practice, at our runs, we improved the times every single lap. Even during Free Practice 3, the sun was shining, and we even improved on the third fastest lap with the same tires. Which is unheard of, especially in races in Middle East”.
“During Qualifying, in Q1, I always improved my times on the second lap. In Q2 we gave everything, but we were unable to make the tires work in the first corners, and we paid dearly for this in the rest of the lap as well. “.
“We need to understand why this is the case, because our car has always been very good in those conditions,” concluded Russell.
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