George Russell: F1 US GP podium possible without starting in the pit lane

Mercedes’ George Russell felt a podium finish at the Formula One United States Grand Prix was likely had he not been forced to start from the pit lane.

Looking to improve on his sixth-place finish in Saturday’s qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas, Russell hit the barriers hard at Turn 19.

The damage to his improved Mercedes was extensive, forcing him to switch to the previous W15 specification and start from the pit lane.

From there, Russell ran an excellent race, starting on the hard tire and implementing a one-stop strategy to finish sixth.

The pace shown on race day and the variable performance of his upgraded Mercedes, which saw him finish second in sprint qualifying and drop out of GP qualifying, left Russell wondering what might happen on Sunday.

“I had no idea what to expect today, but obviously the pace was pretty good,” Russell told the media Motorsports week after the race.

“I’m still confident that the improvements worked as expected and I really think we could have probably fought for the podium had we been in a normal starting position.”

In the sprint, Russell, in the improved Mercedes, started from the front row but dropped to fifth place, which he attributed to excessive tire wear rather than the car’s poor performance.

“So I think I just destroyed the tires in the Sprint race, but clearly in those first laps yesterday we had the pace and we showed flashes of really good pace this weekend,” he said.

Russell calls for permanent stewards to be hired following Bottas incident

Russell’s charge through the field at the United States GP had a slight bump in the road.

The Briton was given a five-second penalty for tearing through Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas in Turn 12.

“What,” came a loud cry over the team radio as Russell was informed of his fate, with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff replying: “total joke George with the penalty, total joke.”

Fortunately, the penalty had no impact on his final standing, but Russell questioned the decision anyway.

Russell agreed, having failed to overtake Bottas at the peak of the race, that his penalty was fair “under the letter of the law”, before adding whether permanent judges throughout the year would help everyone be on the same page when it comes to changing such rulings .

“My penalty with Valtteri (Bottas). The rules say if you don’t get over the apex and you push someone wide, you get a penalty,” Russell began.

“So under the letter of the law my punishment was fair, but anyone who knows anyone who watched it knows it wasn’t fair.

“So I don’t really know how we’re going to move forward. I think we would probably all like to see the same stewards year round, so that drivers and stewards are on the same page and we can use common sense when necessary rather than following the letter of the law. “

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