Styrian Grand Prix – Williams driver George Russell was left bitterly disappointed to retire from the Styrian Grand Prix having been running in the points early in the race.
The Briton started up in 10th after being promoted from 11th due to a grid penalty for AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. The Williams driver ran into the points for much for the first part of the race before a power unit problem forced him to pull into the pits and retire from the Grand Prix.
“I’m just gutted for the team to be honest,” said a downcast Russell after the race. “You know, they’ve worked so hard to be in this position over the past three years, chasing these points.
“We never really knew when they would come and we knew we’d have to have a perfect weekend and, you know, we were in such a great position – P8, on the medium tyre – we would have been able to pounce at the end.
“And I think P7 was probably possible, ahead of Alonso and there’s four or six points, is massive. It’s the difference probably between P8 and P10 in the championship.”
Williams have failed to score points since 2019, however Russell spent much of his race battling in the mid-field and points’ scoring positions. The British driver explained that he wasn’t surprised to be up in the points positions due to hard work done by the Williams team.
“I wasn’t surprised to be honest because I know we’ve done some really great work recently to improve the car, and I knew the pace on Friday was strong,” said Russell. “I was obviously on the mediums [tyres] compared to the guys ahead on the softs, so I was driving my heart out, driving as fast as I could to keep behind the Ferrari and AlphaTauri and McLaren, you know?
“We’re not normally in this position so we should be proud of the job we did. Racing is just brutal.”
There is a silver-lining for Russell, however, as Formula 1 will race around the Red Bull Ring next weekend for the Austrian Grand Prix. The 23-year-old feels that there will be opportunities at the next round.
“That’s the thing for us, we know that these opportunities don’t come every day and we have to do everything great, and others need to make mistakes for us to capitalise and today was that day for us. This is racing, it’s not meant to be easy.”