Interesting progress at Williams
This season, George Russell scored his first points with Williams. The future Mercedes driver is proud of the progress made by his team in recent years. He doesn't want to stop scoring points after his ninth place finish at Monza.
After a difficult year in 2020, Williams seems to be getting back on track. This season, the team has scored several points and is even in eighth position in the constructors’ standings.
It took until the Hungarian Grand Prix to see its two drivers score points. While Nicholas Latifi finished in seventh place, George Russell finished just behind him. The latter even repeated the feat in Belgium by producing an incredible Q3 on the wet track. The Briton then qualified in second position, thus winning half points in the GP fiasco. In Italy, taking advantage of other drivers’ mistakes, Russell finished in ninth place. Consistent results that show all the work done by Williams in recent years. Russell is proud to have scored points three times in the last four races. He emphasizes the efforts of his team during this season.
« More points! Three times in the last four races, it’s pretty crazy. The team is doing an incredible job and making the most of others’ misfortunes. We’ve scored points in three out of the last four races, even without the pace to do so. As a team, we have definitely done something right, and it fills me with pride to continue bringing these results home.
Russell declares that the first points obtained in Hungary were like a relief for the team. A kind of liberation, while the team surpassed its direct competitors, Alfa Romeo and Haas.
After scoring the first points in Budapest, everyone was almost relieved. Maybe we need to try to find more performance and get a better result. Everyone is confident, week after week, we just have this momentum. I’m really excited that we are in this mindset.
But everything is not perfect at Williams. At Monza, like Red Bull or Mercedes, the British team wanted to test a different wing. A test that was not conclusive as Russell had a hard time balancing his car. Not everything is to be discarded, the future Mercedes driver still managed to finish in ninth place.
« It’s the first time in a long time that we bring a rear wing to Monza. To be honest, it didn’t quite react as we would have hoped and we really struggled to balance the car. […] It wasn’t our best weekend, but we came home with a ninth place. »
