A clean, uneventful race for the British driver, yet Russell remains disappointed with his Mercedes. His thoughts after the Suzuka Grand Prix
George Russell’s fifth-place finish at Suzuka confirms a solid start to the season. The British driver has been extracting the maximum from his Mercedes, particularly in qualifying, where he’s often managed to split the two McLarens. The leadership role entrusted to him by Toto Wolff this season is paying off, with Russell consistently capitalizing on every opportunity with his W16.
Despite finishing just behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari (click here for Leclerc’s post-race comments), Russell was not satisfied with the result. While the Mercedes wasn’t competitive enough to challenge for the podium, Russell did attempt several early moves to put pressure on Leclerc — without success. In the second stint, on the hard compound, the gap initially grew to four seconds before narrowing to just over one second in the closing laps of the Grand Prix.
Russell’s Disappointment: “Frustrated, We Could Have Done Better”
Russell shared his thoughts after the Japanese Grand Prix: “Today’s race was definitely frustrating. With the top six finishing in the same order they started, it was essentially a race shaped by yesterday’s qualifying. A one-stop strategy was relatively straightforward, and on a track where overtaking is incredibly difficult, there weren’t many opportunities to move forward.”
He also expressed regret over not being able to challenge Leclerc more directly: “We did our best to make the undercut work on Leclerc at the end of the first stint. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have the pace to make it happen, especially with the traffic we had to clear over those two laps. Regardless of the strategy we chose, I believe we would have ended up P5 and P6 anyway” (referring to Antonelli’s sixth-place finish, editor’s note).
Photo: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team