In Las Vegas, George Russell secured an impressive third place after a race in which he briefly even dreamed of more. Starting from P4, he quickly climbed up and moved towards Max Verstappen, who was leading. The Brit changed tyres earlier than the Dutchman, hoping to take over the lead. “When Max came out of the pit lane, I thought I had a chance. He still had cold tyres and I had pushed hard.”
However, that attack had a downside. Russell quickly noticed that his own tyres were wearing out. “But actually, I had damaged my tyres with that. I called to my engineer that I wasn’t sure if my tyres would last until the end of the race.” From that moment on, it was mainly about survival with many laps still to go in Vegas.
Russell kept his cool and continued to drive within his capabilities. As a result, his third place was never in danger. “It was really tough and not a good race for us. But a podium finish is probably the maximum we could achieve here.”
