George Russell made his Formula One Qualifying debut today at Albert Park in Melbourne, where he will line-up as the lead ROKiT Williams Racing Driver on the grid for tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix

George hit the ground running during Free Practice on Friday and Saturday morning, accumulating 71 laps of the 5.303km Melbourne Grand Prix circuit across the three sessions.

Qualifying kicked off on Saturday afternoon, where George improved on each of his three ‘soft’ tyre runs in Q1 – setting a fastest lap time of a 1:24.360s with his final lap of the session, placing him 19th on the grid ahead of his ROKiT Williams Racing team-mate Robert Kubica.

George Russell - ROKiT Williams Racing Driver:‍

"It was great to get out on the track in Melbourne for the first time. It really is an amazing circuit.
On my first lap when I went down into turn three it felt like I was flying as everything was so close together.

However, we didn’t have the best of days in terms of lap time, as we are a long way off the rest at the moment. We know what we are in for across the first few races so we need to focus on building on that and making sure come mid-season we have something better.

In Qualifying, it felt like a really good lap - driving round a mega track at full beans. I got in three tidy laps and I am happy with my own performance, but obviously we are a team and we want to push for more.
The guys around me, the engineers, and myself, we did a really great job to get everything out of the package we’ve got. All I can do is drive as fast as I can, and I felt like I did that.

Overall, it was an amazing experience, especially with all the fans around the circuit, it is something that I will remember for a long time."

The Australian Grand Prix will kick-off the 2019 Formula One World Championship tomorrow at 16:10 (GMT +11) where George will make his Grand Prix debut, with the race shown live on Sky Sports F1 HD.

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Photographs Courtesy of XPB Images

Additional Press Content Courtesy of ROKiT Williams Racing

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