“He did an incredible job at defending,” James Vowles praises George Russell after he outclassed Max Verstappen in Spain
Follow Us
James Vowles showered praise on George Russell
George Russell and Mercedes had a fantastic weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in last weekend’s Spanish GP. Starting on the podium, he finished 3rd, and also led the race for a small period of time, after Charles Leclerc was forced to retire on lap 28 due to issues with the power unit. He led the race until being overtaken by Sergio Perez on lap 31.
Then he was consigned to third place, after pitting on lap 37, just before he would presumably have been overtaken by Max Verstappen on fresher tires. After that, most of the race went smoothly, until the very end, when there was a DNF risk for both Mercedes cars due to overheating issues. They had to lift and coast to prevent a retirement. Hamilton’s car was confirmed to have a water leak and was re-overtaken by Carlos Sainz, who he had earlier passed.
On being asked how Russell kept the faster Red Bulls behind for such a long time, Mercedes chief strategist, James Vowles showered praise upon George Russell.
“George did a fantastic job at defending. He really was very, very good, at both: under braking, and also at positioning the car where it needed to be. He did that, relative to Perez for quite a few laps, and then Red Bull inverted the cars and put Verstappen behind [Russell, ahead of Perez].”
He admitted that they had also been lucky with Verstappen’s DRS issues, which helped Russell to keep in front, but still emphasized that Russell did a fantastic job.
“But Verstappen also had a problem. Verstappen’s DRS was intermittent at opening down the start/finish straight. There were some laps where you could see that Verstappen could come alongside and George had to create quite a line into turns 1, 2, and 3, and did so fantastically well. There were other laps where Verstappen wasn’t as close, and that was when the DRS was not opening.”
“Part of it is just an incredible amount of racing skill that George has inherently, and the second part of it is a little bit of lady luck on our side when Red Bull did not have a working DRS for a number of those laps.”
James Vowles: “Porpoising issue has not disappeared yet”
Mercedes had been struggling with porpoising since the start of the season, and they were so severe that George Russell complained of chest pain. However, this has begun to change in the last few races, where the phenomenon has been reduced. In Miami, the porpoising was pretty much absent on Friday, even if it made a comeback later.
In Spain, Mercedes’ porpoising seemed to have disappeared for the most part, but it was still there in the corners. Even so, it seems to have been dramatically reduced. However, James Vowles warned that it would be wrong to assume that the porpoising has disappeared.
In a debrief released by the team on YouTube, Vowles explained: “We’ve had one race out of six where the car has been well behaved. It was a car that, really, was a proper racing car for once.”
He said that the car was more responsive and also easier to set up:
“We could set it up, we could tune it, we could play around with the settings and it would respond in a way that was predictable and the same couldn’t be said for the car that we had for the first five races of the season.”
“However, we have to temper our expectations. It’s one track and a track that has suited our car for many years prior to this one. There is a lot for us to understand and learn. I think it would be wrong to say that the porpoising issue has disappeared.”
Vowles was cautiously optimistic for the next few races.
“We will move forward from where we are now but it will be a journey, it won’t happen overnight. And we’ve got difficult tracks coming up, we’ve got Monaco and Baku which will throw up their own challenges and surprises. The difference now, though, is we have a car that’s within touching distance of the front and a car we can fight for a championship with.”
George Russell had also tempered expectations earlier, saying that Mercedes were ‘three or four races’ away from being back to competing at the top, despite their strong performance in Spain.
Indeed, at least in qualifying, Russell and Mercedes were quite a bit away from the top. However, they did better in the races (even if fortune favored them) than in qualifying, as Toto Wolff had said in an interview with Sky Sports, post-qualifying:
“My belief is we have a race-car more than a qualifying car. But we are going to see tomorrow how it went for the other ones [Red Bull and Ferrari].”
Later, talking to Motorsport, Toto Wolff had also said that he believes in Mercedes’ title hopes once again due to the strong weekend in Spain.
“Can we fight for the World Championship? We bet we can. But we just need to have a car that is able to finish first and second. And I think we have reasons to believe we can get there.”
Mercedes will be hoping for an even better weekend in Monaco in order to capitalize on the momentum gained in the Spanish Grand Prix. They are currently in 3rd place, 49 points behind Ferrari. George Russell is 4th with 74 points, while Lewis Hamilton is 6th, with 46 points.
Also Read: Monaco GP: Weather forecast for the seventh round of the season
Stay Updated!
FS Desk
(8023 Articles Published)