George Russell has conceded he was “left scratching his head” after going backwards in the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver qualified in fourth place and had looked strong all weekend going into Sunday’s race but struggled for pace and finished seventh – one spot ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Russell, 26, who came into this weekend having been denied victory in the Belgian Grand Prix after his car was disqualified for being underweight, said he was perplexed to be so far adrift.
“We just had no pace,” the Briton lamented. “I was just dropping like a stone – especially quite surprised versus Ferrari. We were expecting to be comfortably ahead of them, and Charles [Leclerc] was quicker, Carlos [Sainz] was catching me. Clearly, we got something wrong with the tyres.
“After the first couple of laps I thought we were on course for a podium here, I knew the overtaking was going to be difficult. I was really shocked at how fast McLaren was.
“Lando [Norris] just looked so comfortable out there, super impressive to see, but we’ve had six really strong races and then suddenly we’ve finished almost a minute behind the win, so you don’t lose all of that performance overnight.
“We qualified fourth and clearly didn’t get something right [in the race]. Honestly, right now I’m still scratching my head. It was very tough conditions, you know, this wind with the long corners. Right now I don’t have the answers.”
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Meanwhile, Hamilton was left ruing the cost of his three-place grid penalty imposed for blocking Sergio Perez and said that grid drop prevented him from a shot at the podium.
“I had a lot of fun today,” the seven-time world champion commented. “We planned to do a two-stop, started on the soft – the soft tyre was a very good tyre, it felt much better than the medium tyre in practice.
“The hard tyre was pretty decent, it was difficult to see what I needed to do. I was on a two-stopper, so I was trying to use up the tyre but I also wasn’t sure whether or not we might possibly go for a one [stop].
“Probably if I got on to the one-stop and managed a little bit better, then I could have done a one-stop and maybe finished one spot ahead.
On whether the result would have been better without his grid penalty, Hamilton replied: “Yes, definitely, if I just qualified like I should have qualified.
“If I didn’t have the problem in…
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