George ends a rain-delayed Japanese Grand Prix in P8 with four points.

With the rain setting in before the start of the race, George lined up on the grid on the Intermediate tyres in P8.

As the lights went out, George maintained his position as he battled against the poor visibility before a crash for Carlos Sainz Jr. brought out the Safety Car.

The rain continued to intensify as the Safety Car led the pack around and the red flag was thrown two laps into the 53-lap race.

After a lengthy delay, racing resumed with a rolling start and all the grid donning the Wet tyres.

Making an early pit stop, George switched onto the Intermediate tyres to re-emerge in P14.

With the first round of pit stops, George moved up into P11 to start chasing down Yuki Tsunoda ahead for the final point-scoring place.

Catching both Tsunoda and Lando Norris, George moved into P9 before setting his sights on his ex-teammate Nicholas Latifi.

As the clock ticked down, George swept past Latifi into P8 then gained an additional spot as Fernando Alonso made a late stop.

The Brit attempted to chase down Sebastian Vettel ahead but as he slowly made progress on the German driver, a hard-charging Alonso on fresher tyres snatched the place.

Crossing the finish line, George ended the shortened race in P8.

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George Russell – Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One™ Team Driver

We need to review and see what we could have done better today. I think we had a stronger car than the result reflects, and that we could have been P6 today. I think that stacking in the pit lane cost me positions, and that made it a frustrating afternoon, so we need to look at it and see what the other options were. I made some good overtakes after that - but it was a case of trying to recover what we had lost. It was a strange afternoon overall: the conditions at the beginning were impossible, not with the grip but in terms of visibility and the amount of spray this generation of cars generates, and we need to learn the right lessons from the incident with the recovery vehicle on track while we were running behind the Safety Car. Overall, this has been a difficult double-header for us, and we've not scored the points we should have - so we need to regroup, focus on the final four races, and try to extract everything from the car we have under us. And of course, congratulations to Max on his second championship; the outcome has been clear for a while, but he and Red Bull have done an exceptional job this year.

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