Russell on pace with Hamilton: "Knew my pace was coming"
F1 News
George Russell finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which eventually turned into a podium for the Mercedes driver because of Fernando Alonso's penalty. The Brit finished in P3 because he was less than 10 seconds behind Alonso when the penalty was applied.
Mercedes made light work of the Ferrari cars, but they couldn't challenge Alonso on the track. Therefore, Russell sees it as just "an extra trophy" and acknowledges that the green cars were just stronger: "The penalty for Fernando is pretty harsh, they are deserving podium finishers today," he told Sky Sports.
Duel with Hamilton
Mercedes weren't able to fight other teams, but they did find themselves next to each other. Russell had harder tyres than Hamilton after the safety car period. At one stage, the seven-time World Champion was within DRS range but couldn't make the overtake. There were some suggestions that Mercedes should've swapped their drivers but Russell knew his pace was coming.
"It was an interesting race. He [Lewis] probably had a bit more pace at the beginning, I knew my pace was coming at the end. There was a lot of confusion, I thought Fernando had a five second penalty. I didn't want us both to fight each other and both lose to Alonso. Then we could have a fair battle towards the end," Russell added before summarising the bigger picture for the rest of the season.
"You have to give credit to Red Bull. The gap they have to the rest of the field is biggest we've seen since Mercedes in 2014. It's a serious gap. Everyone needs to keep working harder to close the gap. We know we made the wrong decisions over the winter. We can regain some of that performance quicker than you would do ordinarily. Everything is not all lost," Russell concluded.