Mercedes were the last time to depart the pits in the closing minutes of Q3 at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday evening, with Hamilton leading his teammate away from the garage. Russell had struggled earlier on in practice and didn’t seem quite like he could exploit the W14 quite as well as his multiple world champion teammate. With the clock ticking down the 25-year-old British driver barely managed to get a last flying lap in and managed to bag himself 5th on the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix
The Briton seemed at a loss to explain why he struggled in the car under the Texan sunshine, even at one point doubting he would make it into Q3 at all when he spoke to the media after qualifying:
“It’s been feeling quite good, we can feel the improvements, but it’s been a bit of a strange day for me, so I’m actually pretty pleased with P5 because at some point it was looking like we may not have even got through to Q3, so I’ll take those positives, try and work on it.”
Despite being slower than his teammate, Russell looks ahead to the rest of the weekend with positivity having rescued a result he didn’t feel like was within reach on Friday:
“Q3 was a reasonable lap, I made a bit of a mistake at Turn 1, probably cost me one more position on the grid, but all in all, as I said, P5 is a great place to start on Sunday, and when it was looking likely at the points, we could have been much further down the order, I’m pretty satisfied with that position.”
Both Mercedes drivers will have a difficult task in Sunday’s race given both Red Bull’s are starting behind and likely to have stronger race pace and trying to get past the McLaren of Norris and both Ferrari’s in the mix they will likely do well to just finish the race in the same position they start.
