George Russell insisted that he was not too upset about finishing behind Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. They were forced to settle for sixth and seventh place at Imola, with Hamilton leapfrogging Russell towards the end of the contest.
Russell spent the entire race ahead of Hamilton until he was called in for an extra pit stop with 14 laps remaining to fit a new set of medium tyres. It allowed him to snatch an extra point for setting the fastest lap of the race, but it also meant that he finished a place behind Hamilton despite being faster than him all weekend.
Speaking after the chequered flag, Russell explained that he was not as disappointed about losing sixth place as he would have been if he was fighting for the race win.
“You’re never going to be happy with sixth and seventh,” he said. “At the end of the day, as a team, we scored one extra point. I lost my position to Lewis, but I’m not going to sulk over losing sixth, to be honest. This is where we are right now, a little bit in no-man’s land behind the Ferraris and McLarens and ahead of the midfield.”
Mercedes were clearly the fourth-quickest team at Imola and had little chance of catching up with the drivers ahead of them. They were put under pressure by Sergio Perez behind them in the second half of the race, which led to Russell pitting for fresh tyres in a bid to keep the Mexican at bay.
Explaining the decision to swap Russell’s hard tyres for a set of mediums, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “His lap times were getting slower and slower. Our wear forecasts at that time were saying he wasn’t going to make it to the end and we didn’t want to lose the position to Perez, so that was the call.”
The Silver Arrows will not be happy with finishing sixth and seventh but Wolff was adamant that his team are moving in the right direction in spite of their latest disappointing result.
“If you look at the gap to the front and our closest competitors, you see progress,” he added. “They are not the positions we want to be in, we have been saying that for a while, but we see that the lead of others is getting smaller. It takes time and we have to be patient, that’s the reality at the moment.
“We know we have developments in the pipeline that will improve the balance of the car. Even though our positions are not good enough now, we are moving in the right direction. During the race, we will focus on maximising the package we have now and try to score good points.”
