Russell: New Grand Prix, new top 5

In nine Grand Prix races, George Russell has entered the top 5 nine times. The consistency of the young British driver is simply exceptional. However, this weekend in Montreal, Russell was starting from 8th place on the grid, after a gamble in Q3 the previous day that didn’t pay off.

It only took five laps for the Mercedes car number 63 to climb up to fifth position, just behind teammate Lewis Hamilton, after overtaking Mick Schumacher, Esteban Ocon, and Kevin Magnussen at the hairpin. With Fernando Alonso’s Alpine dropping down the rankings in front of them, the Mercedes cars ultimately finish in 3rd and 4th place, with the seven-time world champion securing his second podium of the season ahead of his 24-year-old teammate.

“As a team, we couldn’t have achieved a better result,” George Russell said after the race. “We believed we could finish ahead of the Haas and Alpine, it was just Leclerc and Checo [Pérez] who worried us a bit.”

Despite a W13 that seemed more comfortable this weekend, Russell remains cautious and believes that there is still a long way to go. I think the qualifying sessions seemed promising at times, but the actual pace deficit compared to the leading teams was really significant. So even though we could see some sort of improvement on paper, we are still a bit far from where we need to be. We haven’t made a lot of progress yet, but we are still working as hard as possible to close this gap.

After the various issues faced by Ferrari in recent Grand Prix races, George Russell is just 15 points behind Charles Leclerc. An achievement when you consider the difference in performance between the two cars, but also revealing the impressive optimization of Mercedes and the young British driver.

Reposting this every Monday till the streak is broken. pic.twitter.com/eIaEQw3BAY

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 20, 2022