Russell: 'We need to use more common sense in these offences'

The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix was largely marked not by what happened on the track, but by the stewards' decisions. Fernando Alonso was given a five-second time penalty for being incorrectly positioned at the start, and a second time penalty after the race was over because the team had broken the rules in serving the first penalty. This second time penalty was rescinded after protests from Aston Martin. Two weeks earlier, Esteban Ocon experienced a similar situation at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Alonso's second time penalty initially made it look like Russell would take over his podium spot. Russell, therefore, chimed in at the post-race press conference, where he was asked for his take on the whole situation. " I understand why these rules are there." the Mercedes driver began. "But  I think a little bit of common sense needs to be shown.

"Ultimately, I think he was a bit to the left [of his starting position], was that right? He gained nothing from this. Perhaps a five-second (penalty) is too much. And then with regards to his pitstop again, I don't know what happened and why he received the further penalty exactly. But a 10-second is too extreme in that case again."

'From the car, you can't see the ground'

Russell also confirmed that it is very difficult to see the lines on the track from the car, something in which he was joined by Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Apart from Ocon and Alonso being wrong at the start, many drivers had to deal with track limits in both qualifying sessions and thus lost their time.

"There's a lot of conversations that were going on this weekend about which lines you could touch." Russell continued. "I said in qualifying yesterday, we saw a number of cars get laps deleted for touching a bit of the red paint, ending their lap. I just thought that was a little bit senseless, really, so I think we all need to come together and just find a common centre ground. We're sat so low and to put some perspective, we only see probably the top four or five inches of the tyre so you can't actually see the ground itself. It’s really, really tough so that's why I think in this regard we need to show a little bit more common sense."