Williams’ George Russell says the Intermediate tyres that he used towards the end of the Russian Grand Prix were “like a slick” compound after he used all of his allocation in qualifying.
Saturday’s session was held in wet-to-dry conditions, with Russell qualifying in third place.
The final laps of the race in Sochi on Sunday saw heavy rainfall, forcing the field to switch to Intermediate tyres.
Russell, who was one of the first to pit for the wet weather compound en route to 10th place, says his final stint on the Inters was a struggle due to not having a fresh set available to him.
“I don’t think we could have expected much more to be honest, we know the pace of the car,” Russell said.
“If we pitted early, if we pitted late, everyone else would have found a way around us. The likes of Mercedes are two seconds a lap faster than us, and everyone else probably one second a lap faster, so to keep them behind was very tricky.
“The final few laps in the wet were really not good, really struggled, but I think it was contributing to the fact we had used Inters.
“We went through all our sets of Inters in quali so they were like already like a slick before putting them on, so just had no grip out there, lost two positions, so P8 was the maximum today, but we’ll take P10.”
Russell’s result was his fourth top ten finish in the last five races, lifting Williams to 23 points in the Constructors’ Championship.
Despite suffering at the end of the race, Russell has hailed the team’s performance in dry conditions, admitting it knew a high points finish was not realistic despite its high-starting position.
“The performance on the slicks was really good all-round from the team, from within the car I felt happy and confident,” Russell said.
I don’t think the race could have gone much better, we could have dreamt of an amazing result but that was not realistic, and we probably finished where we deserved to.”
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