Russell Reflects On The Mexico City Grand Prix: 'It Was Like Driving On Ice'
F1Tuesday, 31 October 2023 at 20:30
Mercedes F1 driver George Russell described his experience from the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Not achieving the best qualifying result, George Russell started the race on Sunday in the eighth place on the grid. Mercedes driver showed a decent pace throughout the race, but it was only good enough for P6.
Russell, at one point, looked faster than Ferrari drivers who finished in front of him. However, he got stuck behind Carlos Sainz, whom he could not overtake. Russell told the media after the race:
"I felt really good in the car today, the pace was there so definitely a positive from this weekend. I was right behind Carlos wanting to overtake when my brakes overheated."
The 25-year-old came close to overtaking Sainz on a few occasions, but the Spaniard just got away with it. Russell then had to back down because of fear of overheating his car.
"We were concerned about making it to the end, so I had to back off and that’s where I lost all the temperature in the tyres and didn’t manage to get them back into the right window."
The Brit attributes the loss of grip on his tires to the fact that he had to back up. By losing the grip, he lost a lot of pace and got overtaken by Lando Norris on McLaren.
"It was like driving on ice for the last 20 laps so I’m glad I managed to finish in P6. Another difficult weekend for us but the car was performing well."
The problem with low grip for Russell was so significant that even Daniel Ricciardo on AlphaTauri in seventh place caught up to him two laps before the end and would overtake him if there were one or two more laps.
"I’m looking forward to Brazil and I hope that we will show some good pace there too and hopefully we will be in a position to fight for the podium."
Brazil is the place where Russell achieved his first ever and so far the only win in Formula One when he scored a one-two with his teammate Lewis Hamilton at the last year's race.
The 25-year-old will be looking to repeat this success this week during the sprint weekend during the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos Circuit.
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