"Russell made little fuss and delivered the goods"

Much has already been said about George Russell's magnificent race in Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes last weekend. Despite the fast pace and some nice overtaking, the Brit was minimally rewarded: a 9th place while twice over P1 seemed to be attainable. In his weekly column former driver Jolyon Palmer explains what made Russell's race all the more impressive for him.

On Formula 1.com Palmer analyses George's race and praises the young talent for being able to perform in a car tailored to anything but his body type. Palmer: “Typically a driver would not be able to perform at his best without being perfectly fitted into his car as one, but Russell, despite not being at optimum comfort, made little fuss and delivered the goods.”

Comfort crucial for performance 

The Mercedes in which Russell tore around Sakhir on Sunday was tuned to the much smaller Hamilton, which forced Russell to wear smaller size shoes during the race. He was also sitting very high up in the Mercedes, and almost touched the halo with his head.

Palmer explains the importance of comfort in a Formula 1 car: “Driver comfort is normally second nature in Formula 1, and is usually absolutely crucial to performance. Drivers take a lot of time over the winter doing a seat fit for each new car that turns up to pre-season testing, and then fine tuning the seats and positions of the pedals, steering wheel and headrest throughout the first day of testing, and sometimes longer.”