(Motorsport-Complete.com) – He was denied the fairy tale, but George Russell, on his Mercedes debut at the Sachir Grand Prix 2020 leave a lasting impression. Of course, it is important to come to terms with the sporting tragedy. And since Mercedes did not only conflict with the failed pit stop .
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George Russell was only brought in with a round delay Zoom Secure
Russell caught a creeping flat foot on the alternative set when he had just worked his way up to second place. “We were 0.1 bar out of the window,” explains senior race engineer Andrew Shovlin. But Mercedes didn’t bring Russell in immediately.
“We took united states of america a round of time to check whether that’s really the case. You just do a plausibility check. Only then the chain is set in motion, you put in the pit stop and put in another set. “
He assures that everything was under control:” We knew from the start that we united states of americadas for a while. But you have to be very careful when the pressure drops properly. From 0.9 to 0.8 bar you can really damage the construction and break the whole tire. “
For Russell, the disaster heralded itself with a slight oversteer: “I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that I had a puncture. It still felt like I could handle it. But then it always got sc worse and towards the end of the lap I got the first aha moments and just crawled around on the straight. “
Sergio Perez could consolidate its lead at this point. “Honestly, I couldn’t believe it,” said Unlucky Russell . “We gave everything, put united states of americabis together into the night and implemented everything perfectly. My emotions look accordingly.”
Shovlin assures that neither Russell nor Mercedes are to blame: “It’s very unfortunate. We were really unlucky here with punctures – three in two races. That is not good. But these are random events. We had no other problems during the season. It is just unlucky – nothing used to be he or we got it wrong. “
On the contrary: Russell must have done a lot right. Because, as Shovlin explains, it didn’t even really fit into the car: “That was really difficult. And even more difficult because we haven’t had such a great driver in the car for a long time.”
George Russell is a proud 1, 82 meters of height . The last driver who could even begin to get there is Jenson Button with 1, 82 meters. But that has been history in Brackley for eleven years. “Every year you try to make the car even tighter,” says Shovlin.
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“Man tries to squeeze everything together a little more here and there in order to get even more performance out of the thing. In such an environment it is of course uncomfortable for a driver of this size. ” Russell protruded clearly from the cockpit, which is used to be detrimental to the aerodynamics. Nevertheless, he bit his way through.
“He did an excellent job blocking that out. It’s not just about not sitting in the normal sitting position. It can be painful because we just couldn’t give him enough space. He was squeezed and the seat wasn’t exactly perfect. That can really hurt while driving. Those weren’t perfect circumstances for him. “
From the outside The Formula 2 master of 2018 really didn’t show anything . And he also impressed the team: “He found the fade very quickly, just look at the Friday times. Of course, it’s easier with our vehicle than with a Williams, because it’s nice to drive and doesn’t have any major weak points. It has good ones Grip. It was easier in that regard. “
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Russell’s helmet almost covered parts of the air scoop Zoom Secure
But actually it takes more than one race to get used to braking later, fueling earlier and generally being able to drive through the corners at a higher speed. “He really did a good job and approached everything very methodically”, praises the 47 – year olds. “Above all, that he didn’t go beyond the limit.”
But driving is only one thing. The entire team processes were completely different: media rounds, briefings and much more: “There are so many things and procedures to learn that have nothing to do with driving the car that we had to teach him.”
“We tried to do that in a way that didn’t overload him. We didn’t tell him on Thursday evening that used to be becomes relevant on Sunday morning. We did it in a structured way. But it’s for drivers not exactly easy to hop from one team to another. “
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