George Russell confesses that he was "too cautious" at the start of the Formula One Mexico City Grand Prix, losing positions behind Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez.
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George Russell started second, but after giving Lewis Hamilton room, he emerged from the first lap’s opening series of bends in fourth place, a position he retained until the finish of the race. Russell noted that recent disappointments, like as his first corner accident with Carlos Sainz in Austin, had motivated him to be cautious, especially when battling with his teammate. When asked about his first lap, Russell commented, “I knew I wouldn’t be able to overtake Max [Verstappen] on the outside.” “But with Lewis on the inside, I didn’t want to be too aggressive because he’s obviously my teammate.” “And ultimately that that cost me and caused me to lose two positions. So ultimately if I had managed to maintain position, I probably would have finished second today.”
“Yeah, I think it was more in Turn 1 to be honest, I would have typically just chopped across or in Turn 2 I would have run the driver wide,” Russell said when asked if he would have offered the same room to anyone other than his teammate. “So, yeah, that’s how the game works at times.” I’d like to assume it would have been the same if the situation had been reversed. Perhaps, perhaps not, I’m not sure. “However, I’ve had a bit of a shaky previous three races on my behalf, with too many mishaps and blunders.” And that was most likely due to being overly cautious. And somewhere in there is a balance.”
Russell admits to being dissatisfied with the method he implemented in Mexico. Early in the race, he stated that he intended to go long on his first set of mediums before switching to softs, a strategy that Daniel Ricciardo executed quite well. However, not long after that communication, he followed Hamilton’s lead and went to hards. “There are so many things to take away from the weekend,” he remarked. “It would have been interesting to see how we would have fared if we had started on the soft and progressed to the medium, or even if we had extended the medium and finished on the soft.” That’s what I was arguing in the car. Everything looks better in retrospect.”
“There was no actual concept of starting on the soft,” he explained, “but there was definitely a thought of expanding the medium and getting into the soft.” “I’m not sure; I suppose we replied to [Nicholas] Latifi and Lewis, who both worked hard and set up green areas everywhere.” However, the hard tyre simply did not perform after lap two. “I think generally this weekend Pirelli brought too hard a compound. So the soft should have been a medium, the medium should have been the hard, and the hard was like an ultra hard, effectively. “So seeing Ricciardo’s performance is a little bit disappointing as well, because I really felt like I could have continued on that medium at a good pace, and we would have been flying at the end on that soft.”
Russell expressed his dissatisfaction with the hard tyres over the radio, but there was nothing the team could do. Finally, he made a late additional stop to secure the quickest lap. “I don’t think there was a lot of frustration,” he remarked. “You’re just trying to make a point, and it’s physically hard out there, and there’s a lot going on, and you’re dealing with the car, and it may come across that way.” “But I was attempting to make a point.” On the medium, I felt comfortable. The pace was looking great, and I was reducing the distance before Lewis pitted. I was setting personal bests when I was in the lead. “As I said, it’s so simple in retrospect, and perhaps we should have seen that there was no way I could have overtaken Checo with the hard tyre, and the only solution would have been to put on a soft.”
