Russell surprised at 'WEAK' Mercedes pace at Brazilian Grand Prix

Sam Cook
Sunday 5 November 2023 14:27

George Russell has admitted his surprise at just how slow Mercedes were during Saturday's sprint race at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Having struggled for much of the weekend to battle for the front two rows of the grid in both Friday and Saturday qualifying, the team were expecting their strong race pace to put them into contention during the sprint race.

However, it was as much Russell could do to bring his car home in fourth, 25.879 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen, despite just 24 laps around the Interlagos track.

Perhaps even more shockingly, Russell was over 20 seconds behind McLaren's Lando Norris in second, whilst team-mate Lewis Hamilton could only finish seventh having been overtaken by the AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda.

Russell reveals Mercedes inconsistencies

After being slammed with a two-place grid penalty for Sunday's main race which means he'll start down in eighth, it is looking unlikely that Russell will be able to repeat his heroics from last season's Brazilian GP, where he led home a Mercedes one-two.

"The pace we were missing was surprising," he told DAZN after the sprint race.

"The degradation was not worse than expected. The wheels are very difficult to understand. Sometimes the teams are fast and, suddenly, they become slow. We will see tomorrow.

"Today was the weakest pace we've had all season."

READ MORE: Verstappen claims Brazil sprint win as Mercedes face HUGE concerns