25-year-old F1 driver admits they were ‘driving on ice’ at end of Mexico GP

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Mercedes driver George Russell has admitted the end of his race in Mexico couldn’t really have gone much worse.

The 25-year-old was talking to Sky Sports F1 (29/10 10:48pm) after picking up eight more points yesterday.

However, he would have hoped to have been fighting closer to the front yesterday as the Mercedes clearly had pace.

His teammate Lewis Hamilton put in a stellar performance to leapfrog both Ferrari and come home in second place.

The team got his strategy spot on as his medium tyres managed to hold on until the end of the race after the red flag caused by Kevin Magnussen’s crash.

George Russell spent much of the restart stuck behind Carlos Sainz and wasn’t able to replicate the move his teammate made on Charles Leclerc to move up to fourth.

Instead, he had Lando Norris bearing down on him in the closing stages and he was powerless to stop his good friend gliding past him.

Norris had so much more confidence in his McLaren in Mexico than Russell did in his Mercedes.

He explained after the race why that was the case but will ultimately hope that his fortunes improve in Brazil.

It’s a race he will have fond memories of and is a track where Mercedes traditionally thrives.

Mercedes driver Russell explains Mexico issues

Asked to assess how the race went, Russell said: “Yeah, the last 20 laps was just terrible.

“The pace was really strong after the red flag, and felt really good in the car, I was right behind Carlos [Sainz] trying to make the overtake and then my brakes overheated and we weren’t going to make it to the end.

“So, I had to back off and as soon as I did that I lost all the temperature in my tyres and I can never recover it.

“It was like driving on ice, I was lucky to finish in P6. The story of the weekend was another difficult one because the car was definitely performing well.”

Russell has yet to finish on the podium in Mexico in his career, although two of his four races at the track were with Williams before joining Mercedes.

The young Brit singled out Daniel Ricciardo for praise on Saturday but will be glad he managed to find a way to stop the AlphaTauri overtaking him on the final lap.

It summed up where the performance of his car was in the closing stages when the team who started the race bottom of the Constructors’ Championship was easily chasing him down.