George Russell, Mercedes, Singapore, 2022

Russell admits Mercedes failed to capitalise on best weekend yet in Singapore

2022 Japanese Grand Prix

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Mercedes had their most competitive car of the season so far in Singapore but failed to capitalise on it, says George Russell.

The team took just two points for Lewis Hamilton’s ninth place last weekend. Russell set the fastest lap on his way to a point-less 14th place finish.

He said it was “definitely difficult” to make their way forward having started from the pit lane due to a power unit change penalty after failing to reach Q3. “I think it was never going to be straightforward starting from the back in those conditions.”

Russell went off in the wet conditions during the first half of the race on then risked an early change to slick tyres, which did not pay off.

“We made some bold decisions,” he said. “Obviously everything’s easy in hindsight and perhaps [we were] a little bit too risky all in all. But we knew it wasn’t going to be straightforward and that’s what happens when you have a bad qualifying on a circuit like that.”

Hamilton showed the team’s potential by qualifying just five-hundredths of a second off pole position. Russell said the car’s performance on the high-downforce track came as no surprise given their recent performances.

“It is sort of in line with what we expected,” he said. “I think these races, especially post-summer break, we’re getting a really clear trend of where our car is working well, where it’s not working well and that’s giving us a really clear development direction to go down.

“So I think it is a shame for us as a team to have not capitalised on that race weekend. I think we all felt that, but for sure there’s still a lot of positive signs to take away, especially that we really struggled on street circuits at the start of the year and arguably, that’s probably the fastest race weekend we had last week.”

Russell is hopeful the team will show a similar level of performance at Suzuka. “I’d love for it to be as competitive as it was last weekend but I think it’ll be a little bit more of a struggle,” he said.

“I think Ferrari have been very fast in the medium-high speed corners this year. The Red Bulls have been really slippery down the straights, which obviously with only the one DRS zone here, they’ll probably be in a good place as well.

“So it’s not going to be straightforward. But I think we always show quite good pace on a Sunday, so there’s no reason why we can’t be in the fight.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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6 comments on “Russell admits Mercedes failed to capitalise on best weekend yet in Singapore”

  1. George spent 10+ laps on slicks when inters were the right tyre.

    He needs to seriously snap out of this Williams mindset of going f* it, I’m going for broke with my tyre choice. Leave the gambling to the no-hopers, you’re in a f*ing Mercedes!

    1. Also, don’t drive into your competition. That’d help, too.

      1. At the time he pitted I thought it was a good idea because he wasn’t making any headway, in case slicks turned out to be the right tyre could’ve worked, but the track was too slowly improving.

  2. think Ferrari have been very fast in the medium-high speed corners this year. The Red Bulls have been really slippery down the straights, which obviously with only the one DRS zone here, they’ll probably be in a good place as well.

    Classic George, back to his ‘we have the fifth fastest car’ claims earlier this year. Suzuka is very similar to Zandvoort, where Mercedes has their best pace+tyrewear combo this year.

  3. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
    6th October 2022, 12:07

    Lewis seems to be told what he should do and is accepting but tells us all over the radio he thinks the team made a mistake. George on the other hand seems to be calling the shots for himself but likes to implicate the team when things don’t go as planned.

    We know how good George is and I look forward to seeing him in really good scraps at the front.

    1. True, I noticed that with hamilton this race, where he said they shouldn’t have used those tyres.

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