Advancing from 19th to ninth on a street circuit represents a solid result for George Russell, yet it still fell short of the target Mercedes had set. Toto Wolff has now explained exactly why.
The core issue, according to Wolff, is that the Marina Bay street circuit penalizes anyone running in close proximity to the car ahead.
“I think it’s so difficult here to overtake. The moment you catch the car in front, you have such a wake, so much dirty air that you lose downforce, and I think at that stage he was probably one and a half seconds faster than the guys in front of him, but you can’t pass.
“So our best case scenario was P7. If it would have gone smoothly, I think you know P9 we need to be happy with that. It was a damage limitation race for us with him starting from the back and then so far I think he drove a great race.”
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images
He also noted, with characteristic dry humour, that the fight through the field “gave them good TV coverage, no?”
Russell, reflecting on his own performance, said:
“First stint made good progress. Second stint, Nico [Hulkenberg] did a good job defending. Pretty much challenging, but yeah, not much more to say.”
Russell might have gained an advantage with a pitstop during the Virtual Safety Car; however, further misfortune struck when the VSC period ended just as he entered the pits.
“Yeah, I mean 10 seconds more… five, 10, 20 seconds more it would have helped the picture, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over that,” he said. “I think the main thing for us as a team is to try and understand how we’re going to find more performance, because the performance of Red Bull has been very impressive the last three weeks on three very different circuits.”
What Cost Russell a Back-Row Start
Entering the Sunday race, Russell was carrying a 60-place grid penalty following a power unit failure that forced him out of the Bahrain Grand Prix. The extensive replacement of multiple power-unit components, alongside the Energy Store and Control Electronics Unit, led to the severe grid drop that haunted the Briton throughout the weekend.
Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Isack Hadjar also started from the pitlane, leaving Russell on P19.
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