Russell: Top 10 finish in Brazil wasn't meant to be

George Russell admits to being disappointed at narrowly missing out on his first-ever top-half finish after his performance at the Brazilian Grand Prix, but says it simply “wasn’t meant to be” on the day.

In the latter stages of the race at Interlagos, a safety car period was introduced after the retirements of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, resulting in the grid being bunched into a closer group which benefited Russell, who had previously been lapped.

When the green flag eventually came to race, it was with just two laps remaining, allowing everyone to try their hand with a sprint to the finish.

It presented Russell’s best opportunity to finish in the top 10 in his F1 career so far, but he ended up just 1.6 seconds adrift.

“It was quite a long lonely race to start with and then suddenly it was all kicking off in front,” Russell said after the result in Brazil.

“It was nice to finally be in the mix and within that battle. But I mean everyone’s pace when they are battling is our pace when we go flat out.

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“I gave it my everything to try and get an overtake here and there and try and salvage everything we could but it wasn’t meant to be and that was the maximum we could do.”

Williams race engineer Dave Robson was also delighted with how the team performed in the penultimate race of the campaign, after a season marred with errors, uncompetitiveness, and disappointment.

“Once again, the Interlagos track produced a thrilling race, and while we weren’t in contention for points, it presented us with a great chance to practice our race operations,” he said.

“The team did a fantastic job around both safety cars and put our drivers in strong positions to race the cars around them.”

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