George Russell did not fulfill Mercedes car potential in Japan, claims team personnel

Mercedes man Bradley Lord feels George Russell and Kimi Antonelli left points on the table in Suzuka, as the result wasn't indicative of how good the car was. The F1 Japanese GP saw Max Verstappen secure pole position and win the race. However, before qualifying, the primary team that appeared to challenge the McLaren duo was the Brackley-based outfit.

With George Russell behind the wheel of the Mercedes, the car was not too far behind the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Russell had shown incredible pace in qualifying as well, and it all ultimately came down to the final lap. It was on that lap that the Mercedes driver made a mistake and hence compromised his qualifying.

Since Suzuka was more than a handful when it came to pulling off overtakes, George Russell was unable to do anything meaningful in the race. He started the race in P5 behind Charles Leclerc, and even though he hounded the Ferrari driver throughout the race, there were no overtakes.

Talking about the car's performance, Mercedes man Bradley Lord said that we weren't able to see the real pace of the car because George Russell was almost always stuck in traffic. He did, however, feel that if the driver had qualified better where the car was ideally supposed to be, i.e., in the first two rows, the car would have been able to hold its position. He told Pitdebrief:

"It’s obviously difficult to say. George didn’t really have a sort of clear run at it, I suppose, in the race. But I think if we’d have been able to put the car where we felt the potential was, which was on those first two rows, quite where it might have been anywhere between first and fourth, then I’m sure we’d have raced there as well.”

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Explaining George Russell's strategy with the Mercedes

During the first stint, Mercedes made it a point to pit George Russell much earlier than the leaders to trigger an undercut. The driver had been stuck behind Charles Leclerc for the entirety of the stint, and hence, the team tried something different to give the Brit an edge. Ultimately, Russell came out into traffic and hence was unable to make the most of the call to pit. He said:

“Yeah, we knew the traffic was there and sort of took that risk. We talked about it in the morning and George had sort of said, “‘I’m willing to box into some traffic because the tyre condition won’t enable us to make ground on them.’ That was the case and he was able to get through, but it just wasn’t quite enough to be able to get past."

George Russell has been more or less performing at a strong level this season, but the miss in Suzuka did cost him a position and hence some valuable points.