In the round-up: George Russell says he’s pleased to have taken fourth on the grid for the US Grand Prix after admitting he lost confidence during Friday practice
In brief
Russell relieved to regain confidence lost on Friday with fourth on the grid
Russell qualified sixth behind team mate Lewis Hamilton but gained two places on the grid after penalties for Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. That was a satisfying result for Russell who revealed he’d suffered a knock to his confidence earlier in the weekend.
“I’ve been off the pace this weekend,” Russell admitted. “The start of FP1 was good but then I had a big sideways moment and almost crashed in practice and that sort of sapped a lot of my confidence across all the practice sessions. But fortunately from lap one in Q1, sort of back to normal ways.”
Asked if it was rare for him to lose confidence in the car in that way, Russell said “this year, no, it’s not rare, to be honest.”
“Especially with the porpoising, with the stiffness of these cars. It’s a bit of a diva at the best of times.
“You always want to have a clean weekend, you never want to put the car in the wall or anything. And if you ever have a big moment that sort of takes that confidence away, it does take a little while to get back to it. But I think once the helmet’s on in qualifying, you always have a slightly different mindset and fortunately the car sort of fell back to the normal ways in qualifying.”
Antonelli takes second F4 title in a week
Mercedes junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Formula 4 championship to secure his second title at F4 level in just seven days.
Antonelli led from pole for the first of three races at Mugello to clinch the title from Alex Dunne. It was the Mercedes junior’s second F4 title after securing the German ADAC F4 championship last weekend at the Nurburgring.
Ferrari’s Beganovic crowned FREC champion
Ferrari academy driver Dino Beganovic claimed the Formula Regional European Championship title with a race to spare after a fourth place finish at Mugello.
Beganovic started third on the grid but finished fourth behind race winner Paul Aron and podium finishers Victor Bernier and Josh Dufek. The Prema driver led the championship from the opening round, securing four wins and 11 podium finishes. He also tested an FIA F3 car for Prema in September.
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