George Russell feels the points in Hungary helped Williams to relieve the pressure and confidence to push ahead with more in 2021 F1 season.
Ever since Williams opened its account pre-summer break at Hungaroring, it has opened the floodgates for the Grove-based outfit. Not only have they seen Q3 finishes, but also double Q2 and even secured its first F1 podium since the 2017 Azerbaijan GP.
In the last four rounds, it has gathered 22 points, which seems enough to seal eighth place in the 2021 standings, even though there are races still where Alfa Romeo can bounce back. For Russell, it is lot of pride to have managed to score the points he has.
He feels Budapest did help them to gain that confidence, where it was a relief and weight off the shoulders. “Points in three of the last four races is pretty crazy, I think this is what the team do incredibly well, just making the most of other people’s mishaps, lets say strategically and we capitalise from it,” Russell said to written media.
“Because we know where the pace of the car is but we’ve now found ourselves three races in the points, probably without the pace to do so. As a team, we’ve definitely done something right and it fills me with a lot of pride to be able to keep on bringing these results home. Having scored those first points in Budapest, it’s almost a relief on everybody’s shoulders and now we can just go out, week in, week out and just try to maximise the package.
“Maybe roll the dice slightly and try a few new things to just to try and find more performance and get a better result. So just keep them coming. I think we’re just doing things right now and everybody’s got confidence. Week after week, we’ve just got this momentum. So, really pleased we’re on this journey at the moment,” summed up Russell.
Williams head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson, reflected on the whirlwind weeks for the team, where they not only scored points, but also a podium. Even though they are to lose Russell from the team, but they have roped in Alexander Albon.
“It has been a bit of a roller coaster for us, the last few weeks, some really good bits, and to be honest with the end of the triple-header, it was quite tiring and everyone was looking to get back home,” said Robson when asked by FormulaRapida.net. “But its been good fun, it has been nice to have some good success, some fortune and some hard and well earned success, which has been good.”
Here’s George Russell on radio after another points finish: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-italian-grand-prix-george-russell-reacts-to-finishing-p9-and-more-points-for-williams.1710724264007479908.html
Here’s George Russell and Lewis Hamilton discussing on 2022