Villeneuve critical of Russell: "That cost him the podium"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
George Russell has often had the upper hand in his duels with Lewis Hamilton so far, but he had to give way to his teammate in the Canadian Grand Prix. This was partly due to his worse starting position, which was the result of a wrong guess. Jacques Villeneuve does not have a good word to say about that decision.
Villeneuve points out on the F1 Nation podcast that Hamilton was able to qualify ahead of his team-mate because Russell made a "bad decision" to be the only driver to change to slicks in Q3. This cost him dearly, as he was unable to set a lap on the dry weather tyres, resulting in eighth place on the grid.
Villeneuve criticises Russell's choice
The Canadian firmly disagrees with the suggestion that it was a courageous gamble. "There was nothing brave about it. It would never have worked: it was freezing cold, it was still humid and the drivers were even struggling to get the intermediates working at the front. How are you going to get temperature in the slicks then?"
He adds that he could have taken such a gamble when he was still driving for Williams, but calls it a "really bad call" to do so with a car in which he could have qualified fourth. "It cost him the podium," Villeneuve observes.