George Russell had to watch the most of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix from the pit wall after his W14 broke down, on a day when the Briton was looking racy around Albert Park.
Russell had a rocket start to his race, overtaking polesitter Max Verstappen at the start of the Formula 1 race down under, and but pitting under a Safety Car sent out to collect the wrecked Williams of Alex Albon, followed by a Red Flag ruined his chances of a proper race.
To put an end to his day in the office in Melbourne, his Mercedes W14 decided to call it a day on lap 18, with fire coming out of it engine cover. Game over and off to an early shower for Russell.
Mercedes have shown unexpected pace this weekend, second best behind Red Bull instead of Aston Martin and Ferrari, and Russell made sure to express his gratitude for his team for the strong showing.
After the race, Russell took to twitter to say: “Proud of this team. We had what it took to win this race today, especially with the decision to pit under the SC.
“We’ll continue to fight, our time will come,” he adamantly added.
Mercedes did everything right in Melbourne
Speaking after the race in Mercedes‘ media brief, Russell said: “We did everything right this weekend. We had a great Qualifying yesterday and today, the start was perfect.
“We managed the first stint well and I could have extended it quite a lot more. I’ve felt comfortable and strong in the car on all three days. I see no reason why we couldn’t have fought for victory today, so it’s disappointing.
“As soon as I came through the high-speed turn 10, I felt something go,” he said of his DNF. “Three corners later, I was stopped. When it’s not your day, it’s not your day.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do to catch Red Bull, but we can take the positives from this weekend. Every time we’ve taken to the track, we couldn’t have done any more. We maximised everything and I’m proud of the job that we have done,” the winner of one grand prix concluded.
Reflecting on his driver’s misfortunes, Toto Wolff said: “It was unfortunate with George; he had a great stop from the lead and changed onto the hard tyre.
“It was absolutely the right call, and he would have been very much at the front. With the red flag his race was not so good anymore.
“He still could have made it to the front though, so he was unfortunate to have a Power Unit failure,” the Austrian Maintained.
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