Mercedes F1 Star George Russell Reveals His Confidence Took a Knock After an Unusual Incident at the US GP

Mercedes F1 driver George Russell didn’t quite have the United States Grand Prix opening as he would have liked. The Briton shared that his confidence got “sapped” due to an incident that occurred prior to the qualifying when he almost crashed.

Talking to Motorsport. com, the former Williams driver shared, “The start of FP1 was good, but then I had big sideways moment and almost crashed in practice. And that sort of sapped a lot of my confidence across all the practice sessions.”

“But fortunately, from lap one in Q1, sort of back to normal ways. Six-tenths off pole is not something to be sort of celebrating.”

“You kind of always want to have a clean weekend, you never want to put the car in the wall or anything. And if you ever have a big moment, that sort of takes that confidence away, and it does take a little while to get back to it,” further stated the young Silver Arrows driver.

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George Russell wrapped up the qualifying session in P6 behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton. However, Russell will start in P4 after Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez will move to the back due to grid penalties for ICE.

Despite this incident, George Russell will try to remain consistent

The new Mercedes spearhead has been one of the most consistent drivers this season. Russell has finished inside top-5 on as many as 15 occasions out of all 18 races. The only races he could not accomplish this feat were in his home country, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Japan, where he had a DNF, P14, and P8 finish, respectively.

Russell has failed to get points on only two occasions, one out of which ended in a DNF. This makes the Briton an incredibly dependable driver for the Brackley-based team.

On top of this, Russell has outshined his veteran teammate Lewis Hamilton on multiple occasions. When it comes to the points, the younger driver is in a better position than his compatriot. Russell is in P4 as compared to Hamilton’s P6.

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While the 24-year-old has picked up 207 points, as compared to Hamilton’s 180 points, the 27-point cushion in the very first year on the team could be deemed brilliant. This is the first time since 2016 that Lewis Hamilton is behind his teammate in the driver’s championship.