George Russell enjoyed a solid Bahrain Grand Prix, prevailing in his on-track battles with his ROKiT Williams Racing teammate Robert Kubica – finishing in 15th position at the chequered flag.

George started 19th on the Soft Pirelli tyres for the start of the 57-lap Bahrain Grand Prix.

The start of the race saw both George and Robert make clean starts and picked up several positions, with the pair battling each other in the early stages of the race. George came out on top in their intra-team battle, before the drivers made their stops into the pitstop windows.

George ran a two-stop strategy in the race, where he made his pitstops on Lap 12 for the Medium tyres – emerging again into a battle with his teammate, who had pitted for the Soft compound.

The Briton managed his tyres well during this stint, making his final pitstop on Lap 26 – where he ran the Medium tyres until the end of the race, which finished under the Safety Car.

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‍George Russell - ROKiT Williams Racing Driver:‍

"We know where we are at the moment, but it was a fun race for me. I had some nice little battles with Robert so I’m thankful to the team for letting us race as it was enjoyable.
It was quite a good race from a personal perspective but obviously not too enjoyable finishing in P15.
We know where we are fighting for, but we brought the car home and learned some more things about the FW42."

‍Dave Robson - ROKiT Williams Racing Senior Race Engineer:‍

"It has been another tough evening in Bahrain. The wind has been incredibly strong and very gusty which made driving the cars very difficult, and this was true for all drivers.
We ran largely the strategy that we intended, and both cars were able to fight each other quite a lot, particularly in the first stint using DRS to attack and defend from each other.
Credit to Robert and George as they drove extremely well and fought each other cleanly.
Once the order settled down we continued to follow our strategy, we worked well to get both cars home, and we benefited from a few retirements at the end of the race."

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The next round of the 2019 season will be the 1000th Formula One race, on the 12-14 April, hosted at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.

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Photographs Courtesy of XPB Images

Additional Press Content Courtesy of ROKiT Williams Racing

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