A fairytale victory for George Russell on his debut for Mercedes slipped through his fingers in an agonising manner, but there was no doubting the power of the message he sent at the Sakhir Grand Prix.

Standing in for Lewis Hamilton after the world champion contracted coronavirus, the 22-year-old Briton excelled from the moment he went out on track in Bahrain, and would have won had it not been for a bizarre pit-lane mix-up from the normally flawless Mercedes team.

Even after that demoted him to fifth place, he might still have pulled it off, only for a puncture to cut short his pursuit of Racing Point’s Sergio Perez, who took a brilliant maiden victory.

The pain was etched all over Russell’s face afterwards, but there was satisfaction, too, and he said he would wake up on Monday morning with his “head held high”.

He was “gutted” to lose the victory twice, he said, and had “cried a little” but was also “incredibly proud” of the job he had done, and had “loved” racing at the front – including the “nice” overtake he pulled on team-mate Valtteri Bottas as he set about recovering the places he had lost in his pit stop.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who took the gamble to negotiate a release for Russell from his Williams team for this race, was more than satisfied.

Wolff said: “He has all the potential and all the ingredients that a future star needs.”

Exceeding his own expectations

The quality of Russell’s performance needs a little context, for those who might be tempted to think it was simply proof that the Mercedes is the best car and anyone can win in it.

It is the best car, and many drivers could, but that’s not really the point.

Russell had two days to prepare for his drive in the Mercedes. The car did not fit him. He is five inches (14cm) taller than Hamilton, he had to wear boots that were one size too small to fit his size 11 feet in the cockpit and operate the pedals, he needed ice on bruises at the end of every day in the car, and he was using Hamilton’s gear change and clutch paddles, which were too small for his fingers.

And yet he qualified just 0.026 seconds off Bottas, who has been driving the car all year, beat the Finn off the line and led the race commandingly until a radio malfunction led to Bottas’s front tyres being fitted to Russell’s car at a pit stop under a safety car.

“I thought if was within 0.2secs I would be really pleased with that because I know how much of a rhythm I have had with Williams and how I have got stronger and stronger from understanding the car and my engineers understanding how to set the car up for me. And the progress I’ve made since Australia 2019 has been leaps and bounds.

“I have been on good wave in the past few races and I thought I could come in and do a good job, but I thought 0.2secs would be a good result and would be fair. He has been in this car for 16 races in a row. I am really proud of the job we have been able to achieve.”

‘George is someone to count on for the future’

Russell paid tribute to Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington and the team around him for “getting me there”, and added: “Halfway into the race, I had an eight-second lead over Valtteri and I thought, ‘this is too good to be true.’ And it turned out it was too good to be true.

“It would have been a fairytale to get the victory. We did deserve that today. It was a really well executed race and one small error changed the whole dynamics.”

“I feel for George,” Wolff said. “We didn’t want to set expectations high but he over-delivered and over-delivered and over-delivered.

“His racing was unbelievable, he got off the starting line with the best reaction time in a car that isn’t built for him in a car that is much too small, with paddles that didn’t fit his hands and he got into the lead and drove a brilliant race, and could have won twice.

“So this is not a sad day. It is a day when we learn as a team. When we are in a tough fight in the championship, I wouldn’t want the radio to fail. And we learned George Russell is someone to count on in the future.”

Source: BBC