GEORGE RUSSELL

WILLIAMS DRIVER

What happened when the team called ‘Plan B for reliability’ in the race? When I heard that message, obviously, I was a bit confused. We were having a great race. I saw that they had to top up the pneumatic pressure that was depleting [when I stopped]. They topped it up, and it went down again. So quite a rare issue, not one that the team have experienced in a long time. I’m gutted for the team to be honest, they’ve all worked so hard. And these opportunities don’t come in every race. So ‘typical’ in a way, but that’s racing, it’s not meant to be easy.

Would you say you were fighting for points on merit? Absolutely. I think we would have definitely finished ahead of Fernando Alonso, I think he was struggling a bit. I was just managing my tyres, and out of that midfield gaggle I was the first one on the mediums. I was just waiting for them to pit to sort of drop the hammer. Then I would have had the fresh tyres at the end. I would have been in a really strong position. I mean, I think P8 would have been the minimum really.

Are you pleased you backed up your qualifying pace?

It is definitely promising. I do think that maybe the last few races we have just put things together incredibly well. And everything has been really well aligned and we’ve probably capitalised on other people’s mistakes. We have to perform at an excellent level, and hope that others don’t.

But nevertheless, P11 in quali, we had a good race last week in France, we would have been in the points [this time]. Let’s not get too carried away with ourselves, having just had two races like this. Obviously, we’ve done eight races so far and in only two have we been truly pretty quick. But yeah, a real shame for everyone.