George Russell regrets ‘infuriating’ Qatar speed race

McLaren achieved a decisive one-two finish in the Qatar sprint race. Although he led the race from the beginning, Lando Norris let his teammate Oscar Piastri pass at the finish line to take the victory. Despite George Russell’s concerted efforts to break the McLaren stronghold, he managed a third place finish, leaving the Mercedes driver visibly frustrated.

The McLaren drivers were in a strong position to use DRS to their advantage. Norris, who was in the lead at the time, made sure to keep his teammate a second behind him to ensure that Piastri could benefit from the DRS as well as Russell, who was behind him. Piastri and Russell had multiple close battles, particularly in Turn 1, but the Mercedes driver was unable to overtake.

The British driver explained in his post-race interview:

“It was very close going into turn one a couple of times. It was very frustrating every lap with Lando backing off to give Oscar DRS.

“I understand why they did that, but when you’re out here fighting you want to put on a race for the fans. It was pretty infuriating.”

“However, third position and qualifying later is what is important.

“Lando had good pace, Oscar was struggling, so it would have been nice to go toe-to-toe with Lando to see what the real pace would have been.”

Norris also commented on giving the win to Piastri after the race. indicating:

“We scored a double and that’s what we were looking for today. We have the maximum points, so we’re happy.

“We’re happy as a team, we executed things perfectly. The pace was good, I probably could have tried a little harder than I was doing, but we wanted to keep the others behind, so we tried to help.” and not let George get too close. We did our job and that’s the main thing.

“It was probably a little closer than I expected, but I planned to do it from Brazil.

“It’s just what I thought was best. It’s probably a little sketchy. The team told me not to do it, but I thought I could get away with it, and we did.”

“Honestly, I don’t care. I’m not here to win Sprint races, I’m here to win (Grand Prix) races and a championship, but that didn’t go as planned. But I did my best and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.” .

1. Oscar Piastri, McLaren
2. Lando Norris, McLaren
3. George Russell, Mercedes
4. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
5. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
6. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
7. Nico Hulkenberg, Haas
8. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
9. Pierre Gasly, alpine
10. Kevin Magnussen, Haas
11. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
12. Valtteri Bottas, Sauber
13. Lance Ride, Aston Martin
14. Esteban Ocón, Alpino
15. Alex Albon, Williams
16. Liam Lawson, VCARB
17. Yuki Tsunoda, VCARB
18. Franco Colapinto, Williams
19. Zhou Guanyu, Sauber
20. Sergio Pérez, Red Bull