George narrowly misses out on points in Austria

July 4, 2021
Red Bull Ring
Red Bull Ring
Red Bull Ring
George narrowly missed out on his first point for Williams Racing to finish P11 in Formula One’s Austrian Grand Prix.
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George narrowly misses out on points in Austria

July 4, 2021
Red Bull Ring
Red Bull Ring
George narrowly missed out on his first point for Williams Racing to finish P11 in Formula One’s Austrian Grand Prix.

George narrowly misses out on points in Austria

July 4, 2021
Red Bull Ring
Red Bull Ring
George narrowly missed out on his first point for Williams Racing to finish P11 in Formula One’s Austrian Grand Prix.

George narrowly misses out on points in Austria

Published:
July 4, 2021
at
6:30 pm

George narrowly missed out on his first point for Williams Racing to finish P11 in Formula One’s Austrian Grand Prix.

It was a nervous lap to the grid for George and his team as he reported an issue to the rear of the car. Thankfully, once on the grid and inspected by the team, the car was deemed to be fine and ready to race.

As the lights went out, George dropped four places from P8 to put him into P12 as he took evasive action to avoid a lock up from Yuki Tsunoda in the Alpha Tauri.

A safety car for the Alpine of Esteban Ocon halted any chance of overtaking until lap 3 of the 71-lap race and, as the safety car came in, racing got underway once again with George maintaining P12.

George was able to capitalise on pitstops from the Alpha Tauris and Aston Martins to move into P9 by lap 18 and held onto the position for 13 laps until the first round of pitstops.

On lap 31, George pitted for his first and only pitstop of the race, switching from the Medium compound Pirelli tyres and changing onto the Hard compound, re-joining the race in P16.

It wasn’t long before George was in P14 and, on lap 38, the British driver pulled off a superb overtake on the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll to take P13.

As the laps counted down, George continued to make up places and, with only 10 laps remaining, George was in a heated battle with Alpine driver Fernando Alonso for the final point scoring position.

George was able to hold off the hotly pursuing Alonso but, with only three laps remaining, Alonso was able to get past George and the Brit ended the day in P11.

George Russell – Williams Racing Driver

“Today was so close, yet so far. I got off the line well at the start, but then Tsunoda had quite a big lock up and cut in front of me to avoid going into his teammate, so I had to get on the brakes and lost a couple of places. That didn’t really change the outcome of our race as there were faster cars that were always going to finish ahead of us. That P10 point would feel like a race victory for us, so I was fighting with everything I had. Of all the drivers to have behind you in this situation, Fernando wouldn’t be who you’d choose; he was flying and holding him off just wasn’t possible on my tyres. We’re all disappointed to miss out by such a small margin, but we’re making real progress and we’ll take the positives on to Silverstone.”

George will be back for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Friday July 16 from 2:30pm BST for FP1.