F1 News: George Russell Reacts To His Surprise Performance At Mexican GP Qualifying
After qualifying in P2, Mercedes' George Russell has reflected on his performance from the Saturday, admitting that he felt like pole position was possible.
Adding that he thought the team "deserved more", Russell is now looking forward to seeing what potency the W13 has around the Mexican Grand Prix.
Russell's last qualifying lap looked like he could have indeed found pole position, but running wide at Turn 12 he had the lap deleted due to exceeding track limits. Fortunately, starting P2 on this track isn't as bad as it may sound, with the last three years showing that even someone out of the top 3 can finish first.
The race to Turn 1 on this track is the longest of the season, allowing both Mercedes to use the tow created by Max Verstappen's Red Bull to gain an advantage. This, plus Mercedes' increased performance at this track, could spell the team's first win of 2022.
“It feels like the team deserved more today – the car has been great this weekend and it’s a testament to the hard work that has been going in for so long. At this high altitude, drag is less of a factor for us on the straights, and the update we brought to Austin is performing well." Russel told the press.
"We saw last week with Lewis what the car was capable of, and this weekend, it felt like pole position was there for us.
“I’m kicking myself about the final run, but at the end of the day, there are no points for qualifying and I’m excited to be back on the front row.
"We will be going for it in the race and our long runs looked decent yesterday, so I’m excited to go racing and see what we’ve got.”
Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal, matches Russell's confidence at Mexico this season.
“I think in all my life, there’s only a handful of occasions that I’ve been confident, and never in Formula 1,” said Wolff. “So the truth is I don’t know.
“I’m annoyed about not being on pole, because it would have ticked a box, but equally having Max with his top speed advantage behind us would have been a problem tomorrow.
“Starting second and third can be advantageous, and I hope we can stick our nose or both noses into Turn 1 and disappear into the distance.
"But definitely that’s going to be difficult.”
He was later asked if he thought Mercedes could win this weekend:
“Yeah, I think so.
“The good thing is that in our simulations, we had [Mexico] in a way on the radar as being the best race. So that is good that it correlates, the virtual world correlates with the real world.
“The most important [thing] is that we really have the pace, and slowly but surely, we are going forward and learning the lessons for next year.”