George Russell said he was confident he took the correct direction with Mercedes’ set-up at the last race after Lewis Hamilton admitted his car wasn’t as quick in Jeddah.
The Mercedes drivers finished fourth and fifth in Saudi Arabia, where Russell out-qualified Hamilton and led him home in the race. Afterwards Hamilton said his car’s balance was “a bit off” and that “if I had the set-up that George had, I would have been in a bit of a better position.”
Russell put that difference down to the decisions the drivers made with their set-ups ahead of qualifying.
“I don’t think there’s any luck in it at all,” he said. “I think it’s down to the preparation you put in before the event.
“The changes we made overnight, I knew that was going to be the right direction with the work we did with the team. And I believed it was going to be better than the set-up that Lewis opted for.
“I think everybody’s got different preferences, I was happy with the direction I took and the work I’m doing with the engineers.”
Russell was briefly promoted to third place after the race when Fernando Alonso was temporarily penalised. Despite being relegated to fourth place when that penalty was cancelled, Russell believes he produced one of his most competitive performances for Mercedes since joining them full-time at the beginning of last season.
“I felt like Saudi was probably one of my strongest weekends I’ve ever had with Mercedes,” he said. “From qualifying, I’m really pleased with how that went, the race was really strong and P4 was I think, the absolute maximum we could have achieved.
“I think the Ferraris probably were a little bit faster than us that weekend. We also had Stroll who obviously had the failure, but he was right behind us. So P4 was a good result.”
The Mercedes driver revealed he learned of his demotion to fourth place from Alonso himself, whose penalty for lining up incorrectly in his grid box was overturned hours after the race finished. “Fernando was actually the first person to tell me that I’d lost the position because I bumped into him at the airport,” said Russell. “So he clearly had some insider info.”
“Obviously it was the right decision,” said Russell. “It was just a bit of a shame what a mess it was for everybody else. I think from my side and our side, we didn’t feel like we deserved to finish in third position but obviously it’s quite a nice feeling when it’s handed to you. And then when…
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