George Russell believes he made too many mistakes during the Canadian Grand Prix and it cost him a chance to win in Montreal.
Mercedes backed up recent progress with an impressive performance during a weather-affected weekend, with Russell securing pole position and then finishing third ahead of Lewis Hamilton to secure the team’s first podium of the season. However, having led the first part of the race in wet conditions and then chasing Lando Norris and race winner Max Verstappen at the end, he says he cannot be completely satisfied with his result.
“I think if you had told us before this weekend, pole position and P3, we might not have believed you, to be honest,” Russell said. “But it was a very complicated race for everyone. You advance a millimeter wide and that’s it. I think for me it was too many mistakes at key moments that cost us the chance to fight with these two towards the end of the race.
“To be honest, it felt like a missed opportunity. We were very fast at the beginning of the race on the intermediates, and then obviously Lando came very fast, and then we jumped back on the slicks, made a couple of mistakes, pushing the limits and paying the price for it. .
“It was the first podium of the year though, we really had a very fast car this weekend and being back in the fight for the win was really fun. “That’s what Formula 1 is about and that’s why we race.”
Russell had moved ahead of Norris into second place before sliding out at Turn 8 and giving back the position with 20 laps remaining, and he believes that was one of two mistakes that ultimately proved costly.
“I think (Verstappen was reachable), I mean, we had the pace,” he said. “Max was very strong at that point in the race. But then when we put the mediums on at the end, we were very, very fast.
“I think that mistake with Oscar (Piastri) when I tried to pass him and lost position to Lewis cost us at least second position and maybe fight with Max later in the race. But we will take everything positive from this weekend. First podium, first pole position of the year and really looking forward to moving forward.”
