George Russell admitted he’s puzzled by the tyre issues that hampered Mercedes in the F1 Saudi Arabian GP.
After qualifying third and fifth respectively, Russell and teammate Kimi Antonelli were hoping to finish the triple header on a positive note.
Up to this point the Mercedes duo had shown great consistency. Russell especially has been in top form, securing three podium finishes across the first five rounds, including a hard-fought P2 in Bahrain, where he defended against Lando Norris despite racing on worn soft tyres, and with the electronic systems on his car going haywire.
As such, Russell revealed expectations were high heading into the F1 Saudi Arabian GP. But after encountering issues in the race, with Russell’s tyres overheating and blistering, Mercedes came away with a P5 and P6, Russell finishing nearly 30 seconds behind race winner Oscar Piastri. Team principal Toto Wolff called the outing in Jeddah Mercedes’ “worst performance” of the season so far.
On the upside, this shows that the team’s potential is higher than it had been even a year ago. However, Wolff admitted that Mercedes has “no explanations” for the troubling tyre performance in Jeddah. Russell, meanwhile, admitted that he was surprised by the overheating issues.
Russell on his struggles in the race
“Yeah, it was a very difficult day with massive tyre overheating,” Russell explained after the race.
“I did my best to hold on to Max [Verstappen] and Oscar [Piastri] in the beginning and we did an okay job and then on the hard I was pushing so much that I knew at one point I was going to drop massively and that’s what happened. We need to understand as a team why we struggled so much.
“It’s about how fast we’re going through these corners, and for whatever reason, we’re generating more temperature than our rivals.
“Then suddenly you get to a point where the tyres are like a balloon. We had blistering on the front, blistering on the rear, and then suddenly you just have no grip from the tyre.”
Russell added that the result is disappointing as, on paper, Mercedes had expected to be more competitive in Saudi Arabia than they had been in Bahrain. He stated that the performance discrepancy needs to be studied.
“We need to understand why Bahrain was so positive because that’s also an overheating track, but a very different type of overheating to what you experience in Jeddah,” Russell said.
“We had high hopes for Saudi Arabia but it turned out the opposite, so it’s something we need to understand.”
Consistency is key
It seems the tide is starting to turn for Mercedes in the final season of the current ‘ground effect’ era.
The Brackley-based squad has been a podium contender right out of the gate, and has more than doubled its points haul after five rounds, year-to-year. Russell—who has finished inside the top 5 in every race so far—acknowledged that they’ve generally maximised their points haul every race weekend. He added that the team will keep working to try and close the gap to McLaren at the front of the pack.
“I think we’ve done a good job to maximise the points week in week out and that’s all you can do,” he said.
“I’m not super satisfied with the performance. I still want to keep on pushing. We know that McLaren are one step ahead of everybody…But we’ve been capitalising from some mistakes on their side, helping us get onto the podium and helping us have some strong qualifyings.
“But if we want to continue to fight for the podium we need to find a bit more performance.”
Asked whether he expects the tyre issues to continue, given the fact that Miami is a street circuit, like Jeddah, Russell admitted he’s not sure what to expect heading into round six.
“We have no idea, to be honest.
“It’s so close, it’s such fine margins that make you be inside this window or outside the window. Today we weren’t there; it was a bad day, but P5 on a bad day, it’s damage limitation.”
