George Russell expands on multiple factors that led to F1 Belgium GP disqualification, but he is not dwelling on pushing the boundaries.
It was heartbreak for Mercedes following the F1 Belgian GP when Russell was disqualified for failing to meet the minimum weight requirement. They were short by about 1.5 kilograms which happened due to variable factors involved.
While Mercedes still had the win considering Lewis Hamilton took it having finished second, it was disappointment for Russell. The Brit noted about his own weight being a hindrance along with tyre wear and plank wear, which eventually contributed in the loss.
Despite the disqualification, Russell was pleased with his performance in the grand prix. “I think it was clearly we didn’t do a good enough job, but it was just a number of factors all coming together where we sort of exceeded our expectation of how much weight we would lose, including myself,” he said to media in Zandvoort.
“I lost a bit more weight during the race than we thought. The tyres lost a lot more than we expected. The plank was wearing more than we thought as well. And it’s just sort of these three or four factors all coming together that just pushed us over the edge. But it was such an amazing feeling, just being out there, seeing this opportunity come into life.
“And Spa is such a unique circuit. They’ve got these big, long straights. There’s a few TV screens down there. And I was sort of looking at the leaderboard and the gap to Lewis, and I think Charles was behind Lewis at the time, and sort of working out, like, you know, they’re closing in six or seven tenths a lap, I’ve got 15, 16 laps to go and I’m 12 seconds or so ahead. I think I’ll be able to keep this up.
“And if they’re going to catch me, it’s going to be right towards the end. And yeah, that was such, you know, nobody can take that feeling away from me from crossing the line, celebrating with my team, standing on the podium. I think if I was in a championship fight this year, it would have been a much bigger blow to us, those 25 points.
“But, you know, this season, unfortunately, we’re not quite there,” summed up Russell. Amid the disqualification, the idea of pushing the boundaries has popped up. There is no finger-pointing usually at Mercedes, but such situations create a scenario of doing so.
But Russell is not getting bogged down by the situation and raising slogans against his own teammates. He is still taking positives from it. “I’d been pushing the team for a long time to keep pushing the boundaries,” he said. “If you take margin in everything you do, you’d never be disqualified. You’d never make a mistake while driving. You’d never spin off.
“But you’d never know what the true potential is. And of course, it’s very frustrating that the one time in three years we’ve been just under the weight limit was the race we won. But you know, there’s zero hard feelings because we’re in this together and it will make us stronger for the future. And that race, I lost 25 points. But in my mind, that is still a win.
“I’ve kept my helmet, and it’s going to be going on my bedside table with my other two victories. And as I said, those celebrations I had with the team in that moment straight after were some of the best feelings of my career. So I’ll only take positives from what happened. I don’t think you need to take more margin.
“I think, the processes weren’t quite in place to cover all the different scenarios. I knew before the race I was a little bit light, but it was too late to make a substantial change without eating a steak or something, which was probably not the best pre-race routine. But there are things that now with the benefit of hindsight, we can do better and we will be doing better moving forward. And as always, you need to make a mistake first until you recognise there’s a problem,” summed up Russell.
The Brit also noted of using different floors on Friday of F1 Dutch GP as Mercedes continue to ascertain the differences and which one is beneficial. “I’ll be using it tomorrow morning,” he said. “Lewis will be on the floor from Spa, but we see no issues with that. I think we were uncompetitive on Friday in Spa for different reasons.
“And this is the challenge when you bring upgrades to the car. There’s thousands of reasons why you may be competitive or you may be uncompetitive. This was one factor, but it wasn’t the factor of the lack of performance on Friday. So 99% will be proceeding with the new updates on both cars this weekend.”
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