George Russell welcomed coming away with a podium in the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix after admitting to “struggling” throughout the entire weekend.
Russell was out-qualified by Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli across both Sprint and GP qualifying sessions as he struggled to get to grips with the Miami International Autodrome circuit.
In GP qualifying especially, Russell feared a Q2 exit before recovering to secure fifth place on the grid for last Sunday’s race.
A fortuitously timed Virtual Safety Car granted Russell a cheap pit-stop and leapfrogged him into podium contention in front of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
From there, Russell controlled his position to take a fourth podium in six races, underlining his consistent start to the campaign.
“Yeah, to be honest, really happy to come away with P3 because I’ve been struggling this weekend, personally, and always on the back foot,” Russell told Jenson Button in parc ferme.
“But ultimately, when it mattered, got a really good result today. But well done to the McLarens – they’re just down the road.”
Verstappen tried to come back at Russell later on and he acknowledged that it’s never easy keeping the Dutchman at bay whilst expressing delight to keep hold of third place.
“I was pretty calm and I felt really good with the car to keep him behind me, so it was good,” he concluded.
Why Russell skipped the Miami post-race press conference
Russell was expected to talk further on his race later on in the post-race FIA press conference, but the Mercedes driver was absent, due to ‘medical reasons.’
The Briton was fine in the end, but he had to skip out on the press conference and pay a visit to the medical centre with stomach cramps.
Speaking to F1 reporter Lawrence Barretto, Russell said, “I was enjoying it [the race] but for the last 15 laps I got this horrendous stomach cramp and I’m struggling a lot now.
“Like I can’t stand straight because my stomach is really causing me grief so I need to understand what went wrong there.
“I had a slightly bigger breakfast than normal so that might be the reason, but I feel like I’ve got… I don’t know what I’ve got in there.
“So I’m struggling a bit, but I’m going to take this result.”
READ MORE – George Russell had positive surprise despite ‘worst qualifying of 2025’ in Miami
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