F1, Russell’s awakening in the Netherlands
George Russell takes pole position in the short race at Zandvoort, the fifth of the F1 World Championship, confirming the excellent form of Mercedes. The Briton finished Qualifying ahead of Lando Norris, just 41 thousandths behind, with a solid performance at the decisive moment.
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For Russell, this is a very important result from a morale perspective, because it sends a clear message to Kimi Antonelli: “You can’t relax,” seems to say number 63 to his teammate, who made a mistake in turn 13 during SQ1 that compromised his Sprint Qualifying.
Russell’s words
“This is a circuit I love, where you need a lot of trust and confidence in the car. The last races have been tough, so I’m happy to be back at the top. It’s nice to remind myself that I’m still capable, that I still know how to drive an F1 car,” said Russell after his third career pole in a Sprint. “It went very well, Sprint Qualifying is always difficult because you only have one chance on the soft tire and the track is always evolving. But everything went smoothly, McLaren and Ferrari seemed very fast and we’re happy to have beaten them. It was surprising for us to see how much the rivals have improved in recent races, but we are also in a good position.”
“I came into this weekend with some doubts in my head: I had no idea how it would go and the level of confidence in myself was not very high, but I tried to remember the old feelings to bring out the best of myself in the car. Maybe the mistake in the first part of the season was thinking about it too much. Going more instinctively seems to work better for me. Maybe it’s hard to translate all this from words to action, but I know that with the right mindset I can deliver results,” he concluded.
Pole position allows Russell to look forward to the rest of the weekend with confidence. The Sprint will offer the Englishman the opportunity to reduce part of the -59 gap separating him from Kimi Antonelli in the standings and start the second half of the season by putting pressure on the championship leader.
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