George Russell Reacts to Lewis Hamilton’s Blunt Mercedes Criticism by Revealing “Mistakes” Responsible for Dutch GP Success

What the silly season didn’t provide in entertainment, Formula 1’s first weekend back after the summer break is making up for at the Dutch GP. Friday’s running ended with Daniel Riccardo fracturing his left wrist and Liam Lawson having to step in to make his F1 debut. Zandvoort—usually bright and sunshine—brought a twist with heavy showers on Saturday, making for a day filled with incidents and Red Flags, leading to an exciting qualifying session. All of it led to one of the biggest shocks of the weekend—Lewis Hamilton getting eliminated in Q2.

While Hamilton qualified in an out-of-position P13, his teammate George Russell has a 10-place advantage over him by putting in a mega lap at the end of qualifying to slot his W14 in P3 for Sunday. As the seven-time champion criticized Mercedes for his performance, Russell, on the contrary, revealed how he came out happy after Saturday.

What helped George Russell reclaim his “Mr. Saturday” title?

 Owing to his tremendous qualifying performances in an uncompetitive Williams when he was with the Grove team, the young Brit was dubbed Mr. Saturday. Since joining Mercedes, though, he has had to go up against one of the best qualifiers the sport has seen—Hamilton—Russell’s Saturday performances dipped. After his showing last night, he’s bidding to reclaim that title. While his side of the garage was celebrating, Hamilton’s side was rather shocked with the P13, considering the Brit was tipped to be in contention for pole.

After a disappointing qualifying in changing conditions, Hamilton told Sky Sports, as quoted by F1.com, “I did two fast laps at the end, and the tires overheated, so I couldn’t improve on the last lap. We did make some changes, thinking it was going in the right direction, but it just didn’t work. George went in a different direction, and it seemed to have worked for him.” Tsunoda impeding Hamilton didn’t help his case either. But whatever direction Russell went, it seemed to have worked. 

In an interview after qualifying, as quoted by f1maximaal.nl, Russell said, “Yesterday we did several runs on the soft tire. We made mistakes and didn’t get the tires in the right window, but also knew the potential was there. We just had to get the simple things right, and then the performance would come naturally.” [Translated by Google]

Read More: Shrugging off George Russell’s Threat, Lewis Hamilton Issues Bold Claim to Restore Upper Hand at Mercedes

While he managed to get his tire temperatures in the right window in the wet conditions to extract that P3, Hamilton wasn’t as successful. As a result, Russell has the upper hand on Sunday and hopes to move even further up the grid.

With Verstappen on his “Sunday drive,” George Russell hopes for a fight behind

Max Verstappen secured pole position with a whopping 0.537s margin over Lando Norris, who Russell’s Mercedes closely followed. In a shocking turn of events, after Alex Albon suggested that Zandvoort would be one of Willimas’ worst tracks, the Thai driver secured P4. Despite being in a sandwich between two good mates, Russell hopes to translate his qualifying success into a good result on Sunday. He expressed how he would want to fight both his friends as hard as he can.

With Verstappen on pole, it’s almost inevitable that he’ll drive away as soon as the race starts. Keeping that in mind, Russell, in his post-qualifying interview, said, “I’m sure Max will be having his Sunday drive and waving to the crowd on his way tomorrow, But hopefully, we can have a good fight with Alex, Lando, and the rest of the guys.” The Brit hasn’t secured a podium since the Spanish GP earlier this year and hopes to recreate his P2 here from last season.

With Mercedes’ promising race pace, do you think George Russell can achieve that podium he’s hoping for?

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