Speaking after qualifying about how the pole lap came together, the Briton admitted the result had come somewhat unexpectedly after a difficult session. Russell explained that Mercedes had made a few setup changes which still needed to be reviewed to understand whether they had gone in the right direction, before describing the final lap as something that almost came out of nowhere.
“We made some changes and we need to review if that was the right direction. That last lap came from nowhere. It was such a great feeling when it was such a challenging session and you pull it altogether on that last lap to throw yourselves up the leaderboard is epic.”
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He also revealed that some of the setup changes made ahead of qualifying had been based on tomorrow’s forecast, admitting they may have slightly compromised the car’s balance in the short term and left it feeling somewhat out of sync. He finally acknowledged that Antonelli had looked more competitive throughout the session and that Mercedes no longer held the clear advantage they appeared to have yesterday, but explained that he managed to refocus and piece everything together when it mattered most on the final lap.
“We made some changes based on the forecast for tomorrow. It may have hurt us a bit for now. It put the car out of sync a little bit. Kimi was more competitive than I and we weren’t as clear ahead of everyone else as yesterday, so it was a challenge but I redialled my driving and put it together.”
The British driver looked to be struggling throughout the entire session, finding it difficult to piece together a clean lap as McLaren and Isack Hadjar appeared far more comfortable from the outset. Lando Norris seemed firmly on course for pole after the opening Q3 runs, before the two Mercedes drivers once again came to the fore.
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