George Russell says Mercedes’ performance in the Sao Paulo sprint race was a “tough pill to swallow” after he finished over 25 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
Russell enjoyed a storming start at Interlagos, getting past Sergio Perez and then Lando Norris on the opening lap.
However, the good start didn’t last as Mercedes struggled with tyre degradation.
Russell was able to secure fourth after losing out to Norris and Perez, while teammate Lewis Hamilton fell back to seventh by the end of the race.
Mercedes typically have excelled in race trim, relative qualifying, leaving Russell confused after the 24-lap race in Brazil.
“It was a tough pill to swallow,” he said. “It’s really quite confusing. Unfortunately it’s always down to these tyres and getting them in the sweet spot.
“Especially these last two weekends, nobody’s really understood when it’s working for them, and they’ve found a lot of performance, like Ferrari in qualifying last week, then we found our pace in the race and suddenly it wasn’t there for us today when we expected quite a lot. So I don’t know going into tomorrow.
“Right now, obviously we’re not too optimistic, but conditions are different and that can totally change everything.”
Russell conceded the significant gap to Verstappen and Norris was “quite surprising”.
“I enjoyed the first lap, with Lando,” he added. “It was a bit tight. To be honest, the pace we had was in line with my expectations but everyone else was substantially quicker.
“With Max, we’ve never been that far behind. He finished 25 seconds ahead in 24 laps. Over a second a lap. That was really quite surprising for us.”
Keyword: George Russell: Mercedes’ pace ‘a tough pill to swallow’ | ‘It’s quite confusing’