The United States GP qualifying ended abruptly when George Russell collided with the barriers during his final Q3 push lap. The Briton suffered a snap of oversteer at Turn 19, sending him into the gravel and destroying his front right suspension, prompting double yellow flags. With Lewis Hamilton knocked out in Q1, it was a tough day for Mercedes.
The Brackley team had brought several updates to close the gap to the front-runners, but Russell’s crash damaged the new parts, and with no spares available, he confirmed they may have to revert to older components. Russell revealed that Hamilton had “kindly offered” to lend his parts if needed.
Speaking post-qualifying, Russell admitted: “Right now, the concern is about the bits. We will have to revert on the upgrades.
“Lewis has kindly offered his ones, but we’re not going to swap. So I don’t know what’s going to be happening now, but that’s the biggest concern.”
Hamilton will start 18th on the grid, leaving Russell as the team’s best hope for a podium finish. Despite the rule allowing parts swaps without penalties for a sprint weekend, the team is unlikely to proceed, as it would require significant work on both cars.
Mercedes saw a sharp drop in performance between the Sprint Qualifying and Grand Prix Qualifying sessions, going from pole contenders to struggling to make the top ten. Russell admitted he pushed too hard in his final lap to extract more performance than the car could deliver and it ended in a crash.
“All season, when the car is in the sweet spot, we are fighting for poles and wins. Yesterday, we were both fighting for pole and today we were both almost out in Q1,” he said.
“I really pushed it on that last lap, and ultimately, trying to find performance that wasn’t there and paid the price. And I’m really just disappointed with myself because everyone’s worked so hard to bring the upgrades. Now that is in the bin.”
Russell finished fifth in the sprint race after starting on the front row, showing strong pace early on but overheating his tyres later in the race. The team made only minor set-up changes, but the sudden drop-off in performance was puzzling.
“We don’t have the answers because we keep finding ourselves in this position,” he said.
“It is how the car is interacting with the tyres. The temperature, small changes; the wind, small changes. But it has been the story of the season, old upgrades, new upgrades. Either we’re there or we’re half a second, six-tenths off.”
If Mercedes opts to revert to their older spec, it would undoubtedly result in a performance drop, making the race challenging for Russell starting from sixth. His crash meant that Lando Norris secured the pole position, who nabbed it from reigning champion Max Verstappen by a whisker.
