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George Russell felt that his first sublime race weekend for Mercedes was proving to be “too good to be true”, and he was right.
The Brit had already impressed by qualifying P2 for the Sakhir Grand Prix when he made his Mercedes debut in place of Lewis Hamilton, who continues to recover from COVID-19.
But once Russell took the lead from teammate Valtteri Bottas at Turn 1 and drove away on the Bahrain outer circuit, everyone really started to take notice.
Sadly, Russell’s race had a big bump when Mercedes put Bottas’ tires on his W11 on his second pass, meaning he had to pit again on the next lap to correct the mistake.
And just as Russell had cleared the front riders and was closing in on Sergio Perez for the lead, he suffered a puncture that triggered another pit stop, thus ending any hope that Russell would win on debut.
He said the weekend felt “too good to be true”, and it turned out that it was.
“At some point, it felt too good to be true,” he told reporters after the Sakhir Grand Prix, as quoted by RaceFans.net.
“This whole situation, to have this opportunity and to enter and qualify second, almost on pole.
“But I have to go with my head held high, regardless of the result. I could have been off the beat but I got on the podium [and] even though it’s a podium, I probably wouldn’t have been as satisfied as I am here, right now.
“Because I know it was a well-executed weekend. Between my core group of engineers and myself on the performance side, we did everything we could. And even yesterday, I wanted to be on pole, but given the deadline, since the car was still not well configured for me, since I was not comfortable in the car, I was satisfied with it because it was closer. than expected.
“I know that with more and more races under my belt in this car, I will become stronger. So get in at such a good level. I’ll wake up tomorrow, obviously still disappointed, but I’ll try to keep my head up. “
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While the devastation was evident after Russell crossed the P9 line at Sakhir and exited W11, he said incidents like his accident behind the Safety Car at Imola, where his own mistakes have let him down, hurt more than bad luck. at the Sakhir GP.
“The hardest moments of my career were probably the fault of a personal mistake that cost me a good result, Imola is a good example of that,” he said.
“I guess sometimes you feel like everything is against you in a situation like this.”
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