Russell wants Mercedes back to winning ways after ‘not a fantastic weekend’ in Singapore
George Russell climbed from 19th on the grid to ninth at the Singapore Grand Prix, but the Mercedes driver was in no mood to dress up a difficult weekend.
A new power unit, taken after his retirement from the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia with a failure, sent him to the back of the field despite qualifying sixth on the road. A day earlier he had crashed out of the lead at the end of the second lap of the damp sprint, which Max Verstappen went on to win.
Sunday started better. “I think we made good progress in the first stint, to be honest,” Russell said. “I was pretty pleased with the progress there. However, the second stint at VSC could have stayed out a little bit longer.”
The race turned on that stop. Russell was the last driver to change tyres and came in under the virtual safety car triggered by Lance Stroll’s clutch failure on lap 39, but the neutralisation ended shortly after he entered the pit lane. He rejoined behind Liam Lawson, Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly.
Russell passed Gasly on lap 48 but could not do the same to Hülkenberg's Audi.
“Nico [Hülkenberg] did a great job defending,” he explained. “I struggled to get by him and then towards the end of the race, it was like, it wasn’t worth the risk. So I just brought the car home.”
Hülkenberg took eighth, 1.3 seconds clear. Verstappen won by 7.3 seconds from Charles Leclerc, with Russell’s teammate Kimi Antonelli completing the podium.
“Not a fantastic weekend,” Russell admitted. “So, yeah, bit of a shame.”
The result leaves Russell second in the championship on 238 points, 102 behind Antonelli. The Italian leads the standings on 340 and gets his first chance to clinch the title at the United States Grand Prix in Austin. With six races left, Russell’s hold on second is narrow. Lewis Hamilton is nine points behind in third, while Verstappen, fourth after back-to-back wins, trails by 17.
For Russell, the priority is the car rather than the points. “The goal is to try and improve the car because, you know, we very much were the dominant team for so long,” he said.
Mercedes still lead the constructors’ standings, 134 points clear of Ferrari. Yet Verstappen took the sprint win, pole position and the race win in Singapore for Red Bull, and Russell has noticed the shift.
“Now, since the break, you know, we’ve seen Red Bull be exceptionally fast on many different types of circuits,” he said. “And yeah, we need to try and go back to winning ways.”
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