How George Russell knew it was game over long before British GP retirement
George Russell in the pit lane as he retires his Mercedes during the British Grand Prix
From pole position to retired: George Russell’s British Grand Prix was a challenging one that ended in disappointment as he had to call it quits with a water system issue plaguing his Mercedes W15.
Speaking to media after the race, Russell offered his thoughts on the “real blow” of having the car to win his home race, the British Grand Prix, and instead being forced to watch the race end from the garage.
George Russell’s heart-breaking British GP retirement
Additional reporting by Sam Cooper and Thomas Maher
The British Grand Prix was George Russell’s race to lose, as the Mercedes driver secured pole position ahead of a race that looked set to favor the Brackley-based outfit.
However, on lap 34, Russell was instructed to retire his W15 with a suspected water system issue. The British driver saw his fourth-place evaporate into a retirement.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com, Russell admitted that his W15 had begun to exhibit some concerning symptoms long before he was asked to bring the car into the garage.
“Ten laps before the failure, I knew I had problems,” Russell said. “I was losing power.
“And then, yeah. Water [system] failure. No water to the engine.”
It’s currently unclear if Mercedes were able to retire Russell’s W15 before the water system failure caused significant damage to the power unit.
According to Russell, both race pace and strategy were impressive until that system failure.
Regarding his pole-position start, he said, “It’s always difficult when you’re the first out there.
“I knew it was going to be a long race and sort of wanted to be patient.”
Later, touching on the moment when rain began to fall hard enough that both Mercedes drivers left the track momentarily while battling for the lead, he said: “It was difficult, but I wasn’t flustered.”
Again, he reiterated that his patience resulted from the fact that “I knew that the race was going to be long.”
Later, Russell and Hamilton engaged in a double-stack pit stop, where both racers swapped to intermediate tires. Russell was in the rear of that stack; when he re-emerged from the pits, Max Verstappen had split the two Mercedes drivers.
“As soon as I went back out, I was losing power,” Russell admitted.
“I knew from that point the race was gone.”
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Despite his obvious frustrations, Russell was pleased with the performance of both the car and his team.
“We had the car, in normal dry circumstances, to be 1-2,” Russell said of the Mercedes team’s performance
“We’re clearly back, and I think we’ll be fighting for race wins more often now.”
“Within myself and the car, I’m feeling good,” he added later.
“But obviously this is a real blow — to retire from any race, let alone your home Grand Prix, when you had the car to win.”
The good news for Russell is that the Mercedes team has made a suite of drastic improvements throughout 2024, putting the team in a much better place to compete for wins heading into both the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix taking place later this month.
Read more: British Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton makes F1 history with crazy NINTH Silverstone win
