George claims P5 at Formula One’s Inaugural Miami Grand Prix.

After a difficult qualifying, George lined up in P12 on a set of new Hard Pirelli tyres, preparing to a long stint and a fight back into the points.

As the lights went out, George was unable to make a good getaway, dropping down into P15 and into the grasps of Alex Albon as he fought to keep the Williams driver behind him.

By lap 19 of the 57-lap race, George had made up eight positions into seventh place, capitalising on a series of early pit stops as he continued on his long Hard tyre run.

The Brit pushed on with the Hard tyres until lap 42 when a collision between Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris brought out the Safety Car and George dove into the pits, switching onto the Medium tyres and re-emerging behind teammate Lewis Hamilton in P7.

Once the stricken McLaren was retrieved and the track was deemed clear, racing resumed, and George wasted little time chasing down Hamilton ahead.

With only seven laps remaining, the Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas ahead ran wide at T7, allowing the Mercedes duo to sweep through and George into P6.

George battled with Hamilton as the pair fought for P5. Despite leaving the track and handing the position back to his teammate, George was quickly able to make a second move to claim the place and maintain his consistent top five finishing run.

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

It's mixed feelings to be honest because obviously based on where we were yesterday, today was a good result but if you'd told me after Friday we'd finish P5 and P6 and that far behind P1, I'd have been pretty disappointed. We have a fast race car in there, we just don't have the key to unlock this performance. And we don't really understand why that is so there's work to do.
Towards the end of the race today, when you're battling with your teammate, you've got to show respect, a bit more room than normal. The move was a bit tricky, I went a bit wide, but it's so dirty offline around this circuit. Obviously it was clear I went off the track and had to do it all over again. I enjoyed it and I think there's good respect between us. But Lewis was unlucky today, when you are on 20 lap old Hard tyres there's not a lot you can do really. It was a brutal race out there - so hot, sweating, my eyes were stinging, I had sweat pouring into my eyes, so I need to find a way to get around that.

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