George Russell, Mercedes, Silverstone, 2022

Russell “definitely underperformed” after taking eighth on grid

2022 British Grand Prix

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George Russell was surprised by his below-par qualifying performance in a rain-hit qualifying session at Silverstone.

The Mercedes driver took eighth on the grid while Lewis Hamilton claimed fifth. “I definitely underperformed compared to where the car deserved to be,” Russell said afterwards.

“I was feeling good in Q1 and it just slowly got worse and just sort of lost confidence. And then on that last lap I made a mistake. We had the speed to be probably P5, P4 maybe. So that was a bit frustrating.”

Russell went off at turn three on his final flying lap. “I probably lost for four or five tenths,” he said. “Still the lap was pretty average and losing four tenths at the start of the lap is not ideal. So on to tomorrow.”

Having performed well in wet qualifying sessions during his time at Williams, and again at the previous round in Montreal where rain also fell on Saturday, Russell admitted he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been more competitive today.

“It was definitely tricky finding the right line,” he said. “I clearly didn’t do a good job of that.

“But it’s strange, the wet conditions I usually really like and in Canada we had some really strong pace and the car’s always been strong in these conditions. But today for whatever reason it just wouldn’t happen.”

However he is hopeful his upgraded Mercedes will be more competitive in the race, after showing good pace over his long run on Friday.

“Let’s see tomorrow, I think we’ve definitely made progress in the dry at least,” he said. “We know that qualifying is a bit of a weakness for us.”

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

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4 comments on “Russell “definitely underperformed” after taking eighth on grid”

  1. BOOOOO!!!

    1. Hahahaha, Griffin you champ!!!! You beat me to it!!! Boooo!!!

      1. Are you actual children?

  2. While Russell and Mercedes are beating themselves up about not doing better, it seems some of the teams are bending the rules to the surprise of Mercedes. No teams have been named, but it seems there are teams with ‘flexing floors’ operating outside the FIA rules.

    which begs the question why as it taken till now for this information to come out, and how will it affect the latter part of the championship. It even brings into questions the championship points to date.

    Check this out folks.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/motorsports/f1-flexi-floor-exploit-revelations-a-shocker-says-mercedes/ar-AAZ8IEz?li=BBoPWjQ

    I expect Racefans to make an official posting on this soon.

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