A positive start to the weekend as George ended a disrupted Friday in P5 at Zandvoort.

With the weather looking uncertain across the weekend, George took to the track on FP1 on the Hard Pirelli tyres to utilise the entire session.

Slotting into P7 with a 1.16.734 on his first flying lap, he quickly improved on his lap time to put in a 1.16.359 before returning to the box.

An early red flag as Max Verstappen stopped on track halted all track action after only 15 minutes, sending the rest of the field back to the pits.

Once the Red Bull was cleared, the session resumed with 40 minutes on the clock and George returned on a new set of Hards.

Ending his Hard runs with a 1.15.457, George could only take himself into P15 before switching onto the Soft tyres for the remaining 20 minutes of the session.

Putting in a 1.12.455, George took himself to the top of the timings where he ended the first session.

In FP2, the Brit donned the Medium tyres in the early stages of the session to move into P4 after only six laps before returning to the pits.

Switching onto the Soft tyres, George improved into P3 by the middle of the session with a 1.12.655.

Changing back onto the Mediums for the final 20 minutes, George re-joined the session but a red flag for Yuki Tsunoda stopped track running and the Brit ended Friday in P5.

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

The car's working better than this time last week and it's going to be close tomorrow, McLaren will be up there and Aston Martin too. We know qualifying is our weak point and the race will come towards us - our race pace is looking pretty strong - but you've got to be starting in the right position. It was tricky out there because the timing screens were down so we couldn't see where our long run pace was definitively but we know it's in a relatively good spot. We're closer on Friday than we've been in a while so that's promising for tomorrow. The DRS on the banking is pretty cool, it's incredible how much grip you get with this banking and on turn 3 here, you throw the car in and it just grips - it's a great feeling.

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