Russell grapples with Mercedes’ erratic performance, as the W15 underwhelms on medium tyres despite an unexpected podium finish at Baku.
Well removed from the podium fight at Baku, George Russell was on track for a fifth-place finish before a collision between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz handed him third place in the penultimate lap. Rather than celebrating this unexpected result, the Mercedes F1 driver is pondering the erratic performance of his car, at times sluggish with medium tyres and at other times swift with hard tyres.
“We thought we might contend for fifth place. But the way the race unfolded, we really didn’t expect that. We were very slow in the first stint. I was about a second and a half slower than Charles for most of the laps. It was quite disastrous. But in the last 20 laps of the race, we were a second faster than Piastri and Charles, and three or four tenths quicker than Max, Carlos, and Checo. I can’t quite understand what’s going on. The only difference was that we switched from the medium tyre to the hard tyre. And we need to understand why.”
Mercedes F1 was the only team to run the hard tyre during the free practice sessions on Friday. Does Russell see this as a possible explanation for why his team performed better on this compound on Sunday?
“Not really, to be honest. During the Friday practice and over the course of the weekend, the track was very dirty, and we were about three seconds off the pace on Friday, so it didn’t really help.”
“We need to understand what happened during the race, because in the last stint, we had a car that was quite capable of winning. And in the first stint, we had a car that probably didn’t deserve to be in the top 10. The only difference is the tyres. We’re not the only team to talk about this. It’s quite frustrating for all of us at times not to understand the performance fluctuations from Q1 to Q2, for example, or from one stint to another. It’s a challenge we have to address.”
The Singapore Grand Prix is up next this weekend, and Mercedes F1 had a strong performance there last year. Does Russell expect to perform better than in Baku?
“I have no idea, to be honest, because as I said, just at this race, we had a car that could have won if you took the pace from the second half of the race and a car that should have been outside the top 10 in the first. So, I hope we have the faster version there.”
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Baku GP: Russell Frustrated Despite Unlikely Podium Baku GP: Russell Frustrated Despite Unlikely Podium
