George Russell finished the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix sprint race in eighth place. The Mercedes driver had a difficult time due to two penalties: a three-place grid penalty for blocking Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in the Sprint Shootout; and a five-second penalty for overtaking Oscar Piastri (McLaren) by taking advantage of leaving the track limits.
The British driver admitted that Saturday was not ideal, taking responsibility for both penalties… although he explained that it would have been complicated to give back the position to Piastri in the sprint race: ‘It was a disorganized day for me. Both penalties we received were fair. I was unable to give back the position to [Oscar] Piastri in the sprint race, as [Pierre] Gasly had already overtaken him. If I let Piastri overtake, I would have let Gasly overtake as well. It was unfortunate, as it was an optimistic move on my part. However, ultimately there aren’t a huge amount of points to be won on a Saturday’.
Aiming for the podium in Sunday’s race, Russell considers that strategy will be a difficult aspect to manage and expects to be in a battle with two teams: ‘We are in a good position to fight for a podium with fifth place on the starting grid. It will be an interesting race. The tires seemed good in the sprint race, but that was helped by the cloudy conditions and the temperature dropping a bit. It will be difficult to choose between one or two pit stops, and we will have to be dynamic in order to react to the situation. We should have good speed compared to Ferrari and [Lando] Norris’ McLaren. Maybe we have the speed advantage over them, but they will start ahead, so we’ll see what we can do’.
