George Russell doesn’t think he could have qualified higher than eighth place even if he had made it through to Q3 in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Brit had out-qualified Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the three rounds proceeding this one but was beaten to a place in the final stage in Baku by only 0.004s.
It marked Russell’s first failure to reach the top 10 shootout since Singapore last September, with the ex-Williams driver conceding that Mercedes were struggling for outright speed on Friday.
Despite making a minor error on his final Q2 run, Russell predicts he would have been set for a lowly grid placing for Sunday’s race regardless of if he had made the cut for Q3 over Hamilton.
“Well, I mean we’re not fast enough this weekend,” he said. “Obviously I would have loved to have been in Q3, but I was giving it everything.
“The lap was strong, I made a mistake on my last one which may have just crept me into Q3, but I don’t think we would have been able to qualify much higher than P8.”
Russell’s 11th place and Hamilton’s eventual classification of fifth represented a stark contrast to the highs of Saturday in Australia last time out when the two Mercedes cars qualified second and third.
Both of the German marque’s cars again had no answer to the pace of Red Bull but they were also usurped by Ferrari, who took pole position courtesy of Charles Leclerc.
“So it’s a funny sport this one sometimes, going from qualifying on the front row last week to myself going out in Q2 and Lewis just getting in with P10,” Russell remarked.
“We’ve got another chance tomorrow but not an ideal Friday for sure.”
With the running of the sprint format leading to qualifying taking place slightly earlier on Friday evening, set-up changes of any description won’t be permitted for the remainder of the weekend without the cars being withdrawn from parc ferme.
However, Russell believes that even if Mercedes were allowed to make alterations to its W14 car the team would be unable to unlock the pace needed to be competitive.
But the one-time Formula 1 race winner is remaining optimistic that the open nature of the Baku City Circuit and the potential for chaos often seen at the venue makes it an ideal place to mount a fightback from low down the order.
“I think right now we wouldn’t really know what to change to find the pace we need around this track,” he stated. “It’s definitely a unique one, definitely an outlier compared to the first three races we’ve been to.
“Of all the tracks to have a bad qualifying this is probably one of the ones you’d choose to do it so I see no reason why we can’t fight back on Sunday.
“We’ll see what we can do tomorrow, but… yeah, work hard, try and improve my driving, try and work with the team to see what we can do and come back stronger.”
Having complained about brake trouble on his way to ending up P17 in the sole practice session of the weekend, Russell acknowledges that more laps would have provided him with better preparation to avoid the poor qualifying he endured.
“I mean I wasn’t feeling great in practice to be honest,” he admitted.
“I would have loved to have done a few more laps; we were sat in the garage quite a long time doing a few bits and bobs, which it’s easy in hindsight to say ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’, and a bit of a learning for this sprint race.
“Last sprint race we had we hit the ground running and we were flying every session and this one it’s been the opposite and I think that’s the way it goes sometimes with these events.”
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