Mercedes’ George Russell believes that fourth in Qualifying is “a little disappointing” for the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Russell dominated FP3 like he did in much of Friday’s two practice sessions but struggled to match his high pace across Qualifying, yet managed to snatch fourth on the grid despite only improving 0.630 seconds between his quickest FP3 and Qualifying laps.
Reflecting upon his Qualifying performance , Russell commented: “Ahead of the weekend, we would have taken P4 in qualifying. Having said that, after the performance in FP3 where we were quickest every single lap, we only improved six tenths from that session to qualifying.
“Considering that track temperatures dropped and we had less fuel in the car, we didn’t extract as much as we should have. That was a little disappointing.”
This season though has been a struggle for the 25 year-old Brit who is only eighth in the championship after a tough campaign compared to last season – with a single podium finish, which came in Spain back in June.
Russell therefore is eager to help Mercedes finish second in the Constructors’ Championship ahead of Ferrari who are just four points behind, and finish “the season on a high” on a personal level with another podium finish.
Mercedes Team Principal and CEO, Toto Wolff meanwhile put Russell’s Qualifying issues down to struggles “… with grip and overall performance of the car.”
Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin added that Russell had performed well across all three practice sessions, but felt that the Brit could of done better than fourth on the grid.
“George had a really solid run over the three practice sessions and it felt like we might have done a bit better than fourth today but it was a decent lap, just seemed that in the cooler conditions we were lacking the strengths that we’d had on a hotter track.”
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