Russell Identifies Reasons Behind Failing To Get Out Of SQ2 In China
F1Friday, 19 April 2024 at 18:00
George Russell identified what went wrong during a post-Sprint-Shootout interview after being knocked out of SQ2.
The 25-year-old had the upper hand on his teammate Lewis Hamilton during most of the qualifying sessions this year. However, ever since the Sprint Shootout started, the 25-year-old has struggled to match his teammate.
It was clear George Russell was having trouble trying to generate temperature in the medium compound tires, which were compulsory to use.
His participation in the Sprint Shootout came to an early end after the SQ2 when he was knocked out with a time that was only 0.038 seconds slower than the one of Zhou Guanyu, who was the last man to make it into the SQ3. Russell said after the race:
"It wasn't easy at all. That last basically one lap in Q2, we tried sending it as early as we could, and then obviously got stuck behind – 12 cars were ahead of us just sat in the pit lane, so [I] lost the tire temperature."
"It was close, one more tenth and you're four or five positions higher. Obviously just a shame to be on the bottom end of that, but it's Sprint Qualifying and [we've] got a chance to recover in the Sprint race."
It became clear that rain would hit the track around the middle of SQ2, so drivers had essentially only one lap. Unfortunately, Russell wasn't able to make the most of this one lap, and when he tried to go for a second one, the track was already too wet. He added:
"I wouldn't say it sunk, just a little bit frustrated after the first lap. It was so close getting into Q3, and just challenging conditions. Obviously the rain [is] falling down now, who knows what could have happened in Q3."
"As I said, you've got the Sprint race tomorrow, you can recover some positions, and then [we've] got another chance in qualifying tomorrow afternoon."
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