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George Russell is on a hot streak at the moment. The Mercedes driver has finished inside the top five at every race this season. The Miami GP was no exception, but at one point in the race, Russell appeared to be destined to finish in P7 behind Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.
The safety car gave Russell the opportunity to stop for a set of medium tires and placed him right behind Hamilton, who was on old hard tires. Hamilton put up a valiant fight against Russell on his old tires, but Russell was just faster on those mediums and overtook him in no time.
After the race, George Russell said that he was extremely cautious while trying to overtake his teammate, which is why he went off the track; he was trying to give Hamilton enough space.
“When you’re battling with your team-mate, you’ve got to show respect, a bit more room than normal. The move was a bit tricky. I went a bit wide, but it’s so dirty off line around this circuit. Obviously it was clear I went off the track and had to do it all over again. I enjoyed it and I think there’s good respect between us. But Lewis was unlucky. When you are on 20-lap-old hard tyres there’s not a lot you can do really.
George Russell: Mixed feelings about the Miami GP result
The drive through the field from George Russell was quite impressive. However, if you compare that to the performance Mercedes showed on Friday, when Russell topped FP2 and came second in FP1, the team's result on Sunday can only be put down as underwhelming.
Reflecting on the race, George Russell echoed the same thoughts.
“It’s mixed feelings to be honest because obviously based on where we were yesterday, today was a good result. But if you’d told me after Friday we’d finish P5 and P6 and that far behind P1, I’d have been pretty disappointed. We have a fast race car in there, we just don’t have the key to unlock this performance. And we don’t really understand why that is, so there’s work to do.”
Mercedes is bringing an extensive upgrade package to Barcelona and the championship aspirations of the German team depend on them resolving the issues of their car in time. If the package brings Mercedes closer to the front two teams, we could have an interesting three-way championship battle on our hands. However, if that does not happen, then Mercedes might have to wave the white flag on this season and start focusing on the next one.
