George Russell has revealed that his charging start to the Spanish GP was inspired by remembering a similar getaway for local hero Fernando Alonso at the same venue in 2011. On that occasion, the then-Ferrari driver Alonso qualified fourth but, on the run to Turn 1, passed Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber to grab the early lead.
Russell said he was “dreaming” of such a move the night before the race. The 26-year-old used his reconnaissance laps to the grid to test the limits of what was possible at Turn 1.
From the same fourth position on the grid, Russell repeated what Alonso did 13 years earlier. Russell went ahead of Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to grab the lead – although he took the outside line rather than the inside.
“I was kind of dreaming of it last night, and what my plan of attack was,” he said when asked about his start.
“And I saw the weather forecast, and the wind had shifted to a headwind into Turn 1, which I knew meant I could brake really late and deep into the corner. When I was racing karts, I always remember watching Fernando here, starting P4 and getting into the lead. So I knew it was possible.”
Asked if he’d taken a risk, he said:
“It was calculated risk. I did four laps to the grid, and I practised braking as late as possible on every single lap. So I knew where the limit was. I knew how strong the wind was.
“And I knew what was possible with the car, so it was a calculated risk. It was satisfying to pull it off.”
Russell happy with trajectory at Mercedes
Russell was quickly demoted to third, and a 6.7s first pit stop also hampered his race. He later lost out as well to Mercedes teammate Hamilton, having gone to the less favourable hard tyres for a longer final stint. He just managed to hold off Charles Leclerc at the flag to claim fourth.
“I think a few small things went against us today,” he said.
“The slow pit stop, then put us on the back foot in the middle stint and under a bit of pressure, and then lost a lot of time fighting with Lando, pitting onto the hard tyre that was pretty rubbish. But it protected the P3 and P4 as a team, and that’s what we were kind of aiming for.
“We knew the hard was not going to be a great tyre, but we wanted to split the risk between Lewis and I. Because I think if we extended, potentially, we could have been under threat by Charles behind. So as a team, it reduced the risk.
“Obviously, I felt a little bit disappointed not to be on the podium. But I was there last week. Lewis did a great job today. And as a team, we’re taking the positives away from what’s been a really promising couple of races.”
Russell believes that Mercedes can win races within 2024 and that next season looks promising.
“We know last week we had the fastest car,” he said.
“You’re not going to have the fastest car every single weekend. And we really feel like the momentum has shifted, and it’s with us. We know what we need to do to take the next big leap with our updates. So we’re feeling confident.
“We’re fourth in the constructors’ championship at the moment. We’ve got more wind tunnel time than all of our rivals, and we know what we need to do to make these big strides now. So we’re all feeling excited for the remainder of the season. I’m confident we’ll win races this year now.
“And going into next year, who knows what can happen? We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. But the pace we showed last week and the pace we show this week, we’ve led two races in two weekends since having the upgrades. I don’t think we’d have expected that at the start of a season.”
