Russell delighted with front row start: "I'm really pleased!"

George Russell was understandably pleased to be so close to Valtteri Bottas in qualifying for the Sakhir Grand Prix, finishing P2, just 0.026 seconds behind his teammate on his debut race for Mercedes. The Brit did extremely well to outqualify the impressive Max Verstappen and secure a maiden front row start.

"I tried a lot of things in FP3 and it didn't work so I'm really pleased," Russell told Sky Sports. "Pretty much got it all together on the final lap. Beaten by 26 miliseconds but if you told me last week that I would go P2 last week. I would take it. I'm pleased! Let's see what we can do tomorrow.