George Russell reckons Williams executed the F1 Bahrain GP well, as Nicholas Latifi explains the Mercedes engine issue.
Although Williams were beaten fairly by Alfa Romeo Racing, Russell feels that the team executed F1 Bahrain GP well, considering the wind sensitivity issue they had. The Brit reckons that they made the most out of the situation and that Imola will be better.
“I think it was a pretty well-executed race to be honest,” Russell said to media including FormulaRapida.net. “I think we toughed it out one lap too many in the middle stint – that’s when I had that little battle with Kimi – you know what it’s like when he’s on fresher tyres and we lost three or four seconds or so due to that, which was a bit unfortunate, but it wouldn’t have changed our outcome.
“And I think given the pace of the car, given the conditions, I think it was a very well-executed weekend and that was probably the maximum we could have expected. As I said, it’s going to be a bit of a yo-yo season, and I do think this is probably the worst-case scenario so fingers cross it gets better from here.
“It was nice to be racing. I had a good little tussle at the beginning, made a few places, lost a few places – I forgot how tricky it was right in that battle with all the cars surrounding you! But I thought it was a very well-executed race. The first stint was tricky but I think the second and third stints were as good as can be and our relative pace was actually pretty strong.
“So that’s where we were this weekend and we need to reassess in Imola,” summed up Russell, as Williams F1 teammate Latifi was forced to retire late in the grand prix after a spin. In fact, the Canadian already had issues before the start of the race even started.
Latifi noted of Mercedes engine trouble with regards to power already on the way to his grid. He and the team hoped that it will sort itself out but it started to worsen and led to an eventual spin towards the end of the grand prix, when they chose to retire.
The issue was a suspected boost leak in the power unit, which cost him power and driveability. “The issues was straight away from laps to the grid, even on the laps to the grid,” started Latifi. “I thought it will sort itself once we start the race but it didn’t. I felt like we were getting some quite big oscillations in the engine on power with and without the throttle.
“At the beginning, it wasn’t too bad on the outright performance. It was damaging the drivability as we went on, as it is managing the tyres is a lot and then the engine is oscillating on power, it made worse for the tyres. It wasn’t until the second stint where it started affecting the speed, and we are doing anywhere between 8 to 10 km/hr down on the main straight. It was just getting worse and worse.
“At one point I thought, it was just headwind on the straight which is affecting us but then when the lap times started to drop to 2-2.5s, then we understood, it is getting worse and worse. In the end the last half of that race we were just circulating basically, not really racing and just going through some runs before retiring,” summed up Latifi.
