GEORGE RUSSELL
AGE 23 | SILVERSTONE F1 STARTS 3 | SILVERSTONE BEST F1 FINISH 12TH (2020 BRITISH GP) | 2021 CHAMPIONSHIP POS 17TH (0 POINTS)
GEORGE RUSSELL
“IT FEELS A BIT STRANGE THAT I’VE BEEN HERE THREE YEARS NOW AND HAVEN’T HAD THAT MANY BATTLES”
“It was very intense, unfortunately for only one point, but it felt like it was the last lap of the championship ,” fernando Al onsosai dafter finishing 10th in the Austrian Grand Prix.“in a way, when I saw it was George, I felt a little bit sad the battle had to be with him.” Alonso rates George Russell. And well he should. Their battle over the final point last time out was one of the highlights of a race that had long since lost any chance of a good lead scrap. Russell was unfortunate in that he was taking on Alonso, as perhaps a lesser driver might have been put off by his robust defending. But while the third 11th place finish of Russell’s career is still an excellent result all things considered for Williams, it still represented more pain after showing much promise, as he’s still yet to break his points duck for the team.
Russell has recently been in a rich vein of form. In France, he finished 12th in what he described at the time as his“best ever”race with Williams, and then came the two races at the Red Bull Ring. In the first, Russell was running solidly in eighth when his engine lost pneumatic pressure and eventually caused what Williams’head of vehicle performance Dave Robson called“a good reminder of how brutal and arguably cruel sport can be at times”. Fortunately, the Austrian GP offered an immediate chance to make amends and Russell brilliantly gave Williams a first Q3 berth since Monza 2018, having got through to the shootout on the medium tyres – a task that undid Ferrari.
He made a poor start, still generally a negative aspect of Russell’s game, by being too timid at times on lap one. But then, thanks to the one-stop strategy he’d done so well to secure with his qualifying result, he rose into the top 10 before his thrilling late battle with one of F1’s best-ever racers.“it reminded me of my junior days when you’re battling wheel-to-wheel week in, week out, and I guess the biggest thing was just experience,”says Russell of his fight with Alonso, which he followed with four laps defending against Kimi Raikkonen, picking up a deserved warning over his defence against the Alfa Romeo driver.
“Getting that feeling, doing it in a Formula 1 car, is very different with all the downforce and dirty air. It feels a bit strange that I’ve been here three years now and haven’t had that many battles.”
Russell was able to take on the much faster Alpine in the Austrian race because of Williams’recent progress with the FW43B – and the fluctuating impact of an always invisible foe the team faces every event. Williams upgraded its bargeboard arrangement at the Baku race in a bid to cure the car’s wind sensitivity problems.
On paper, this looks to have worked well given Russell’s performances since, but Williams is not getting carried away just yet. In France, Russell put his strong race pace down to excellent tyre management, which meant he was not taking his car to its limit, despite the wind hampering the drivers on race day at Paul Ricard. Then for both races in Austria, Robson noted that it was“pretty calm, wind-wise, certainly in the sessions that have counted”.
This is why Russell calls this weekend’s race at Silverstone“the next real test”for Williams and his season overall. The track’s ex-airfield nature means strong gusts are to be very much expected, which may well hold Williams back – even if the updates do mean this is less of an issue than early in the campaign. But Russell will still be looking to extend a Q1-escape streak that stretches back to Bahrain and, if he can replicate his Paul Ricard tyre management prowess at a track where the Pirelli rubber is always under severe examination, then there’s every chance he could go forwards in the race. And if F1’s run of having many race finishers comes to an end, then points are still tantalising possible too…
“We’ve gone in a slightly different direction with the car set-up [lately], which I think is beneficial,”russell said in Austria, explaining an element of his recent good form, where additional winglets on the FW43B’S floors have also helped provide added downforce.
“We’ve obviously got these new rear tyres [Pirelli will bring tyres with stiffer sidewalls] in Silverstone, and it’s only one session before qualifying. Then the set-up is locked in for sprint qualifying and then into the race. All of these factors together for this Silverstone weekend is going to make it tough for everybody to hit the ground running.”
Russell is realistic. And well he should be. Silverstone’s 3.66-mile, high-speed layout will expose Williams’remaining lack of downforce compared to its competition ahead in the midfield. Plus, the sprint qualifying race offers a bonus chance for his rivals to get back ahead of he can qualify – in the‘normal’, against-the-clock session – in front.
But he’s simply taking the mature approach – in stark contrast to his altercation with Valtteri Bottas in the aftermath of their massive crash at Imola. Russell has put that firmly behind him, also not letting speculation about a potential Mercedes promotion for 2022 as an upcoming star shift his focus. That’s for the future, maybe, we’ll see. But a look back to the past and Russell’s first British GP is a good reminder of just how far he and Williams have come in two years.
“I’m really excited for [the British Gp],”he says.“home crowd, it was buzzing in 2019 even when I was driving around at the back. So yeah, it should be pretty good.”