Russell: 'This season doesn't make a huge amount of sense'

19:22, 06 Sep

Updated: 19:26, 06 Sep

byKada Sarkozi

George Russell sees that the current season 'makes no sense' in terms of how rivals Red Bull and Ferrari perform.

Russell set the sixth fastest time in qualifying, finishing behind pole sitter Max Verstappen, the two McLarens and the two Ferraris.

The Briton will gain a position for Sunday after Lewis Hamilton's five-place grid penalty is applied.

"This season doesn't make a huge amount of sense," Russell said to GPblog after the session.

"Like when you see how fast Red Bull are here and how bad they were in Hungary, or how bad they were in Bahrain, but then you had an equally high-deg circuit in Imola, and they were amazing. It’s not really adding up.

"Same with Ferrari, one minute they are fast, the next minute they're not. Ultimately, we just underperformed, slightly, in Q3.

"This is definitely a circuit that doesn't really suit McLaren's strengths. It's low degradation.

"You can see people do multiple laps on the same tyre. Tomorrow will be an easy one stop. That's not where they excel. But they're still P2 and P3."

Russell explains tyre choice misunderstanding

After a positive lap in Q1 on the mediums, the Mercedes driver was surprised not to have that compound for his final attempt in Q3. He also explained why that was the case.

"We were one of the only teams with two mediums. It was just a miscommunication to be honest with me and the team, so they're not really to blame.

"It's probably I'm as much to blame that I didn't make it clear. I just thought with the lap time I showed [it was clear]."

"I said after Q1 'the medium feels great and we should consider it for Q3.' Then I said in the middle of Q2 after my first lap, 'I'd like to run the medium in Q3,' and then I said in the garage 'are we sticking to plan?'

"They said 'yes' and I thought the plan was medium, but the plan was soft. So that's why I was surprised. As I said I'm as much to blame, we should have discussed it probably more."

Even as Russell believes he did not do 'good laps' in Q3, his position on the grid represents where they should be.

"I only improved one and a half tenths from Q1 on the medium to my fastest lap in Q3. So you normally talk normal improvement of probably five or six tenths and bearing in mind the lap in Q1 I've done two laps on the tyre.

"You just look at those numbers you would think substantially faster than what I did achieve, but anyway, P5 is probably a deserving position. We qualified sixth, we start fifth."