Russell: We won the race in the first segment

In Las Vegas, George Russell took an important victory, which once again confirmed that he has in fact already become the new leader of the Mercedes team.

Question: George, first you drove a great lap in qualifying and won pole, and then you drove a perfect race and won – what a weekend!
George Russell: Yes, I agree, have a great weekend! The pace we were capable of was a pleasant surprise and yesterday I was very happy with pole position. I think we won the race in the first part of the distance – to be honest it worked out extremely well.

After that I already knew that we would only miss the victory if, for example, the rubber on my car started to grain and the tires started to lose their efficiency. That’s why it was important to control the pace, take turns carefully and reach the finish calmly.

Question: Do you now understand better why the Mercedes car performed so well this weekend?
George Russell: I think so. It’s no secret that we encounter problems on uneven roads, because we need to significantly increase the ground clearance of the vehicle. We need to use much softer settings. All this affects the balance and the downforce practically disappears.

We couldn’t suddenly forget how to set up the car. It’s just that some songs require settings that are not suitable for our W15. And where the surface is relatively flat, like in Las Vegas, where there are no or very few bumps, we can minimize the ground clearance, apply stiff suspension settings, and the car just flies.

Q: What can we expect in this regard in the two remaining stages of the season?
George Russell: I think we will have good chances in Qatar. When I started preparing for this final series of three races in a row, I immediately thought that it might be better for Qatar to keep the best engine, which has the lowest mileage, and use the oldest one in Las Vegas. I admit: now I’m glad we didn’t.

Question: Can you in any way evaluate Max Verstappen’s performance in the races this season?
George Russell: He performed exceptionally well. At the beginning of the year, when he had the fastest car, he was going all out, and that’s probably when he started to think he wouldn’t win the championship this year.

But at the same time, Max continued to perform very consistently at every stage of the season and showed the maximum results his car was capable of. But the opponents did not always succeed. Personally, I expected the battle for the title to continue until the season finale. But he secured the title ahead of schedule, a few races before the end of the championship. In general, I congratulate him with all my heart!

Our job now is to challenge Max, to make his life difficult. In my opinion, we are already ready to make such an attempt.

Question: Next week the race is in Qatar: how are you going to adapt to such a sudden climate change in such a short time, because in Las Vegas it is quite cool and in Qatar there will be extreme heat?
George Russell: There is little you can do in the remaining days; you need to prepare for this in advance. It will be difficult for everyone, but everyone is on an equal footing. In general, no one in Qatar can boast that they are at the peak of their physical fitness, but here it is important to simply minimize losses.

Q: You are wearing wet clothes. Can you confirm that you jumped into the fountain?
George Russell: No, I wasn’t even planning on that, it’s very cold here. I thought I could easily catch a cold, because last year I even had pneumonia and after Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi I was sick until mid-February.

You know, at one point I even wanted to swim in the fountain, but I remembered what health problems I had a year ago. To be honest, I’m wet from champagne.

Question: Las Vegas has an unusual weekend schedule, all sessions are pushed to very late times, while the Grand Prix takes place at the end of the season when everyone is extremely tired. Maybe you want to change something?
George Russell: This is of course a very inconvenient scheme. But there are only twenty racers among us, and there are also about four thousand people who together run all the Formula 1 races. At the same time, the Grand Prix broadcasts are watched by millions of television viewers.

Probably the biggest difficulty for all of us is that the Las Vegas and Qatar stages take place back to back. The only thing that can really do is give us a week of rest.