"Put one wheel off and there's no grip whatsoever": George Russell fears racing will be impacted at the 2023 F1 Miami GP

George Russell feels that the resurfaced track for the 2023 F1 Miami GP is going to impact racing as there is no grip offline. The track surface was not in the best condition for the race last year as well. The surface was disintegrating a bit last season and because of that reason, the track was resurfaced for this year's race.

While the surface has better grip and in a much better shape, there is one drawback. Other than the racing line that is constantly getting rubber laid down because of the cars, offline there's no rubber and hence there is a huge difference in grip.

This was something pointed out by George Russell during his post-practice media interaction. Talking to the media about the session, he said:

"We'll go into Sunday a bit of an unknown. The track's been resurfaced. It's still not performing like any other circuit, so it's a true outlier here, which is cool in some regards. I think is going to be really difficult to race because you can't drive offline, and you've seen a few people, myself included, you put one wheel off and there's no grip whatsoever."

Talking about car performance, George Russell felt that things were somewhat similar to last year when the car behaved unexpectedly with slight changes in conditions. He said:

"It was a similar thing last year. We were quickest on Friday, and then were knocked down in Q2 on Saturday. The car just changed a little bit, even from the medium run in FP2, I felt strong. I was on a lap that was a good couple of tenths up which would have put me inside the top four, and then put the soft tyres on, and the car just wasn't working for me. I think we understand a little bit why that is, and fortunately, we've got the time to make improvements overnight."

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George Russell feels Mercedes could be second fastest

George Russell felt that if Mercedes could get everything right, then it could leapfrog both Ferrari and Aston Martin. Talking about the potential pecking order, Russell said:

"If we get things right, there's no reason why we can't be ahead of Ferrari and Aston Martin, that's the aim. We've seen in these first four races that it's really tight between those three teams. If only that was for the win and for pole position, it would be incredibly exciting!"

He said:

"But it shows if we get things right, we can be rewarded and jump ahead of them, but we need to make some improvements overnight. We know we've got the potential because we saw it in FP1 and at the start of FP2. We just need to get things aligned."

It will be interesting to see what both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton could put together with the Mercedes this weekend.