© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
George Russell had the opportunity to race for Mercedes at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. The young Briton reflects on what the experience taught him.
Russell, a Mercedes junior driver, got this opportunity after Lewis Hamilton got diagnosed with COVID-19.
The young Briton immediately impressed. He qualified in P2, and were it not for Mercedes’ pit stop mix-up and a tyre puncture, he could have won the race.
Now, on the ‘In the Fast Lane’ podcast, Russell talks about what he took away from the weekend.
“I think the first one is more confidence,” Russell said.
“And you know what, I got this opportunity. And we could have won the race if we did not have incredibly unfortunate events like getting a puncture and that’s confirmed that the job I’ve been doing is is probably a pretty reasonable one.
“But, equally, [I] took away that fighting for the win, fighting for pole positon, it is not easy. The likes of Lewis, Max and Danny Ric, they’re setting the bar so high, and you’ve got to continuously keep on improving.
“And I don’t come away from that event thinking ‘yeah, I could have won. I’m good enough. Let’s leave it there’. I come away thinking ‘I’ve got a taste of it, but I need to keep on improving if I want to be at the top’.
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“But I think as well, psychologically, it was so important. I qualified P2 with my best qualifying result by a long way. But I came away disappointed that I missed out on pole.
“And obviously, the effect after the race and the emotions that I went through. Yeah, it hurt me, it was incredibly disappointing.
“But I had to go to the next race in Abu Dhabi, pick myself up again and say, ‘you know what, you got to put that behind you now’.
“Because if you want to win a championship, you’re going to have disappointments, you’re going to have victories taken away from you, you’re going to have weekends where you’re off the pace, and you’ve got to be strong enough to say, right, that’s behind me now.
“Move on to the next one. Because if you dwell on the disappointment, you’re not going to go anywhere,” concluded the young Briton.
