© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
George Russell attended the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix Thursday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: Alright. Best of luck. Thank you very much for that. George, why don’t we come to you now? A great result for you on Sunday. But it wasn’t a straightforward race. We’re now at another street track with the same tyre compounds that we had in Baku. What learnings do you have from last week that you can apply here?
George RUSSELL: Yeah, first of all, every race we go to at the moment, it’s quite a unique circuit. Obviously, Azerbaijan was very unique in its own way. Singapore is unique in its own way. And there’s a lot of these types of tracks on the calendar. And as Oscar said, it’s so competitive now at the front. And a tenth or two can be the difference between a front row star or P6 or 7 on the grid, which is very exciting. We went really strong here last year. The pace was really good in Singapore. So hopefully we can continue that good performance we had here last year and see where it takes us.
Q: If your car performance is as good here as it was in the second stint in Baku, what’s possible?
GR: I mean, yeah, we were really competitive in the second stint last week. Definitely surprised ourselves there. But I think now this circuit, that extra DRS zone, I hope the racing will be slightly better. It’s not going to make it worse, that’s for sure. And maybe overtaking will be possible. So I think it will still go down to qualifying. That’s going to be key, getting a good Saturday in and that’ll set you up nicely for the race.
Q: As you’ve already said, you were very competitive here last year, you qualified on the front row. You were going great guns until the moment on the penultimate lap. Do you feel that you have unfinished business in Singapore?
GR: No, not really. It’s not really something I’m thinking about. It’s part of racing, part of street circuits. If you’re not 100% focused every single lap, you’re going to get bitten. And it was a long old race. I was on the last lap. I thought the race was kind of done. And right behind Lando, he kissed the wall. I touched the wall. And before I knew it, I’m out of the race. But That’s how the game goes, and it’s not going to change my approach one bit, how I go into this weekend. You learn from things like that.
Q: How gruelling is this Grand Prix? Is this still the toughest race for the drivers physically?
GR: I mean, for sure it’s top two, with Qatar. Here and Qatar are by far the most physical races. I think here it’s challenging because there’s so many corners – pretty relentless. Slightly easier now that we’ve got that straight at the back versus what it was like a few years ago. But just with the humidity, you’re dripping in sweat as soon as you go outside, let alone when you’re locked in a race car for two hours.
Q: Dripping with sweat, dripping with rain as well. You got caught in a rainstorm the other day didn’t you?
GR: Yeah you know padel is obviously the new big thing in Formula 1, so it was nice to take all of my mechanics and part of the team and then it just you know the thunder and lightning and rain came from nowhere. So, I think it’s almost every year we see it in Singapore, there is bad weather around. So, you know, maybe I think that was around race time as well. That was 8 pm when it poured down with rain. So if that happens on Sunday, I’d probably mix things up a little bit.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) George, a question for you. Going into the summer break, Mercedes was on a real high, picked up a lot of momentum and since then, we’ve seen McLaren win a race, Ferrari win a race. Where do you see where things have changed a little bit for Merc in that period? Is it just that the margins are so fine right now that being a little bit behind is maybe looking a little worse than normal?
GR: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, to be honest. The margins are so fine. You know, we have still been putting in some strong performances. You know, qualified third in Monza, fourth in Zandvoort, and was half a tenth from third again last week in Baku. And that was obviously on an old engine as well, which didn’t help the situation whatsoever. So, I think if things had gone very slightly differently and if we had nailed those three races as we nailed probably those three qualifyings, we would have been on the podium in all three of them. But we definitely underperformed and I made the mistake at the start in Monza, which had a big impact on the race result. But that’s how it is right now. One small error and you’re three, four, five positions lower down the order than you probably would have been in other years.
Q: (Molly Hudson – The Times) George, you mentioned how difficult it is to drive in these conditions in Singapore. Can you talk a little bit about how you prepare for that and how it changes maybe the build-up to a race with your hydration and things like that?
GR: Yeah, for sure. Singapore, it is probably more of a humidity in all honesty than the heat. But when we’re driving these cars, the cockpits getting on for 50 degrees Celsius, you know, with the ambient and the humidity, the feelings kind of like 40 degrees out there and all of the drivers, we lose almost four kilogrammes of fluids in an hour and a half race. So it’s a pretty good weight loss programme if that’s what you’re what you’re what you’re chasing. But for me personally it’s just, you know, you do a more layers. When I go outside for a run, you know, three layers on the bottom, three layers on top and just trying to get used to it. But when you have a race like Baku the week before, you’ve also got to rest and recover. You’ve got to travel. We spent 10 hours on the flight on Monday traveling from Azerbaijan to here and getting used to the time zone change, etc. It’s not straightforward to prepare in the best way possible.
Q: At what point in the season do you begin your preparations for Singapore?
GR: To be honest, a few months ago. The training during the summer break. I was back training the last week of the summer break, and that’s purely getting ready for Singapore. That’s by far the biggest outlier because you’re just dealing with something very different, which is heat. And when you look at other sports, when you’re in very hot climates, in football, there’s water breaks every, I don’t know, 15 minutes, I think it was, in the World Cup. Or once every half, you’ve got a 15-minute break at half-time to rehydrate or do whatever you want. And we’re obviously powering through in our fireproofs in the car for two hours. So it’s definitely quite a challenge.
Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) Question to George and Oscar. Both of you winning races in Formula 1 and also being champions in junior categories such as F3 and F2 in the first year, do you think this boosts the confidence of young drivers that want to be in Formula 1, not just being in Formula 1, but also winning races in the future?
GR: Yeah, I mean, in Junior Series, at the very sharp end, you’re racing against the very best of that level, and if any driver were to win, you know, F4, F3, and F2 in their first seasons, you know for sure you’re going to be more than capable of fighting at the very front in Formula 1. So, I know there’s a couple of guys who are doing very well in the junior formulas now and have won from the very off. No doubt they’ll be in Formula 1 in the years to come and will for sure be competitive.
Source: FIA.com
