George Russell is yet to score points after 'typical' bad luck ruined his chances in the Styrian Grand Prix.
[Image from Autosport]
Russell has kept his streak of out-qualifying his teammate, Nicholas Latifi, in every qualifying session so far this season. This weekend was an intense qualifying for both drivers, with Latifi missing out on making Q2 by less than a hundredth of a second, still unable to make it into his first Q2 qualifying of the year.
George, however, has picked up the nickname ‘Mr Saturday’ because of his consistency in making it into Q2 in every qualifying session. This weekend was no different.
His pace did not stop there as he went on to produce an exceptional lap which left him 0.008 seconds away from Q3 – his best performance yet.
His luck did not finish there. With Yuki Tsunoda’s three grid penalty, Russell was placed P10 on Sunday’s starting grid. This is the best start George Russell has had in Formula One so far.
The team is yet to score any points this year, so with Russell starting in points position, morale was extremely high.
Light’s out
Russell got off to a great start, leaving behind the lock ups, punctures and retirements caused by the collisions of Leclerc and Gasly in the first lap.
George looked comfortable in the car, extracting the best performance Williams has seen for a long time. Russell even had the speed to keep up with Alpine's Fernando Alonso - at some points driving 0.1 seconds faster than Alonso per lap.
However, one man can only have so much good fortune.
Russell pitted on lap 25, changing from medium tyres to the hard compounds. Russell’s pit stop cost him precious time, the stop being 18.3 seconds. He was then called into the box again on lap 26 after the team found an issue with the car’s power unit.
On lap 38, Russell retired from the race. The rare issue with the car’s power unit caused him to lose valuable points. A P8 finish or higher would have placed Williams above Alfa Romeo in the Constructors’ championship and would have been the team’s best result since the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Though disappointment spread in Williams’ garage, Russell encouragingly said in his team's race briefing afterwards that he is “looking forward to going again next weekend”, taking away the positives to what could have been a masterpiece of a weekend for Williams Racing.
Hopefully, Russell has the ability to show his team and the world that Williams Racing are making their way back into point positions this weekend, as the triple header comes to an end.
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