George Russell says that his pole position at the Las Vegas GP came as “a real surprise” for his Mercedes Formula 1 team – and he’s at a loss to explain why the W15 is so competitive on the street track.
Between them Russell and team mate Lewis Hamilton topped every practice session over Thursday and Friday.
Russell was fastest in Q1 and then Hamilton repeated that feat in Q2. Hamilton then struggled and made mistakes in the final session.
However Russell was fastest on his first run despite touching the wall, and after a front wing change he then went even fastest on his second run to secure pole.
“I’d love to tell you, to be honest, it’s been a real surprise for all of us,” he said when asked where the speed came from.
“And it’s something we need to really review because this is an outlier circuit. We haven’t done anything out of the ordinary specifically for Vegas, but for whatever reason, the conditions, the layout, are playing in our favour.
“And I’m kind of scratching my head as to why. You know, we will ride with it for the time being. But as I said, if you’re quick in Vegas, it’s a bit of a one-off circuit. So we need to understand it.
“And of course, one of our other poles was in Canada as well, which is very cold, street circuit-esque conditions too, so there’s a small trend.”
The car’s pace had been apparent from the start of practice on Thursday.
“It’s incredibly satisfying, and especially knowing the car’s been so quick all weekend,” said Russell.
“As a team, we’ve topped every single session. And nevertheless, when you get to Q3, you know what’s happened beforehand has no influence whatsoever. So the pressure kind of is ramped up.
“And it was a little bit touch and go for a moment because we had to change the front wing. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get the last lap. But then it was a super strong lap, especially the first two sectors, and just really, really pleased to secure the pole.”
Russell told his team to ensure that he was last out for the final runs at the end of Q3 to ensure that he had the best conditions, and he only had a few seconds to spare.
Asked how much the track was ramping up he said: “Massively. I think probably between the very first car and the very last car who does their lap, it’s probably over a tenth. It’s probably the biggest track ramp of the whole season.
“So I wanted to put it all on the line. And, you know, it’s high risk. I knew that if there were no yellow flags, then we would, you know, we had the possibility to be on the front row.
“But ultimately, as well, I want to say thanks to the guys in the garage to get the front wing change so quick as well, because, as I said, I touched the wall in the first run and we could have missed that last run altogether.”
Russell is confident that he can hang on at the front of the field.
“I think tomorrow we should have the pace to fight for the win,” he said. “At the same time, there’s too many unknowns to confirm or deny that. A lot of it will be graining, graining limitation, who can control the graining better.
“But even if we might see some teams struggling a lot on medium tyres, then the hard resets everything again because no one’s run the hard. And we know that we are not the best team on hard tyres this season. Too many unknowns to tell, but I’m confident that we can fight for a win.”
