George Russell endured a bittersweet fate at the 2025 Spanish GP qualifying. Albeit slower than the McLaren duo, Russell put together a stunning lap that matched Max Verstappen to the last millisecond. Unfortunately, the Dutchman took the P3 ahead of him by virtue of setting the lap first.
Despite the setback, Russell remains largely positive about the race on Sunday. Although, he acknowledges the clear disadvantage Mercedes is at for the Spanish GP. Russell highlighted the car’s weakness of causing excessive tire wear under higher temperatures.
While he admitted the factor did not come into play in qualifying, it certainly will during the race. On longer runs, Russell believes the tires to overheat by 10 degrees. That wouldn’t be ideal for a car that is already struggling with tire wear under normal temperatures.
Russell does, however, see the advantage of starting from P4 at the Spanish GP. In the post-qualifying media interaction, he recalled instances where the driver starting in P4 on the Barcelona circuit led the race by the time they got to turn one of the first lap thanks to the slipstream. He did last year.
“It’s the second time it happened,” said Russell about setting an identical lap time to Verstappen. “It happened in Canada last season. That time was for pole.
“But I started fourth last year, and I was in the lead at turn one. So, P4 is maybe not a bad place to start. Fernando also started P4 sometimes and was leading in turn one. But we know we have a long race, challenging race ahead, because in the hot conditions, the race pace is not so good.”
Starting the 2024 Spanish GP in P4, Russell made a brave overtake on Lando Norris (P1) and Verstappen (P2) in turn one to take the lead of the race. He eventually lost the lead to Verstappen on the third lap and finished the race back in the same position where he started.
Alonso, on the other hand, did the same back at the 2011 Spanish GP. The hometown boy overtook the Red Bull duo of Mark Webber (P1) and Sebastian Vettel (P2) from the inside. Unfortunately, he too couldn’t retain the lead to the chequered flag and finished the race in P5.
Did Russell and Mercedes miss a trick at Spanish GP qualifying?
Russell may have maintained that P4 is no bad position to start the Spanish GP in, but there was a point during qualifying where he felt the team could have done better.
After completing his first flying lap of Q3, Russell complained on the team radio about why the team did not do what they had discussed earlier. The indication was to get a slipstream from his teammate, Kimi Antonelli, something the team did not attempt.
“I felt that if we wanted to fight for pole today, we needed to give it everything and go for a big slipstream into Turn 1. Because I knew, with no slipstream, that the maximum potential was P3,” Russell revealed later.
“But I just felt we could have, as a team, done things slightly different, considering I had the two new tyres, and Kimi had only one new tyre. So, the other lap was never going to be his fastest. But we’ll talk about it. At the end of the day, P4. Before, I qualified there last year, and I was in the lead at Turn 1,” he concluded.
