George Russell starts the F1 Dutch GP in P5. He lost out on his second row start to Isaac Hadjar during the final moments of qualifying.
Throughout the session, Russell was unable to find that perfect lap and struggled to get a handle on his car in the windy conditions. These difficulties ultimately led to a lack of competitiveness for him at the top of the field.
Starting P5
P5 is not the position George Russell was hoping to start the F1 Dutch GP from. However, on such a challenging circuit, laps can be hard to nail.
Qualifying was difficult, and Russell was unable to find a comfortable rhythm to help him maximise his performance. Because of this, he feels that P5 is where he deserves to be after his performance.
“This qualifying didn’t feel very smooth; it wasn’t very comfortable. It’s difficult on this circuit, especially with how windy it is.
“It’s a circuit that, if the lap goes well, you can find three or four tenths. And if the lap doesn’t, then you’re quite a lot down the order.
“The laps were not as good today. I was struggling, and P5 was, unfortunately, the position we deserved.”
There was a surprise result during qualifying. On one of the last laps of Q3, Isaac Hadjar put in a lap to beat Russell to P4. Whilst he was surprised, Russell congratulated Hadjar on his performance.
“He did an amazing job.
“I didn’t expect to be behind Hadjar, so congrats to him.”
The race tomorrow
Russell will be hoping to make amends for his performance during the race tomorrow. However, Zandvoort is not an easy track to overtake on, so he will have his work cut out for him if he wishes to climb the order.
Despite that, his sights remain on the last spot on the podium. It won’t be an easy fight, but Russell believes that with the right strategy, he still has a chance of finishing P3. To do this, he will need to get past Isaac Hadjar and Max Verstappen.
“We can still fight for a podium, to be honest. But it will come down to strategy.
“It’s a challenging circuit to overtake on, and we don’t know what the weather is going to do either.
“But we will keep our options open for tomorrow and see what we can do.
“I hope we can move forward and we can fight Max for a podium.”
