George finishes P12 in front of a home crowd at Formula One’s British Grand Prix.

In the unusually blistering heat of the Silverstone circuit, George lined up in P12 on the grid for his home race after receiving a three-place grid penalty for his contact with the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz during Saturday’s Sprint session.

As the lights went out, George dropped two places into P14 as he made the run up to Turn One. Unfortunately, an early crash brought out the safety car as the marshals tended to the stricken Red Bull of Max Verstappen, halting any chance of overtaking.

Due to the damage to the barrier, the race was red flagged after only four laps so the marshals could safely remove the Red Bull machine and repair the barrier.

After vital repairs to the barrier were completed, the race got back underway from a standing start with George in P13.

It wasn’t long before the British driver found himself under pressure from the hard charging Red Bull of Sergio Perez and, by lap eight of the 52 lap race, Perez passed George to push him down into P14.

Opting for a one-stop strategy, George pitted on lap 18 to change from the Medium Pirelli tyres onto the Hard tyres, re-joining the pack in P16.

On fresh tyres, it was time for George to claim back some positions.

The British driver slowly began gaining places and by lap 40, George had gained three places into P13.

The Brit continued to gain positions into P11 in the closing stages of the race. Unfortunately, he was caught by the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly to end the day in P12.

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George Russell – Williams Racing Driver

“P12 was the maximum today for us. We made a poor getaway initially on the first start but a really good one on the second. Sadly, we had already lost a few positions. When you have 50 or 60 laps in a race the true pace of the car comes out and realistically, we are still slightly slower than Alpha Tauri, Alpine and Aston Martin right now. Defending from those teams was always going to be difficult but we’ve been racing in the top-12 in the last four races, fighting for points in three of them, so we are making some good progress.

It has been an amazing weekend here at Silverstone with a strong weekend and the support from the home crowd. I wish it was like this every weekend! I am so grateful, and I hope as a team we can continue to perform and give them something to cheer about.”

George will be back on track for the Hungarian Grand Prix July 30 from 10:30am BST for FP1.