George Russell was left to rue a British Grand Prix where “everything went wrong at every single point”, as Mercedes had a race to forget at Silverstone.<\/p>\n
The Briton came home in 10th place on Sunday, having started fourth, as the Silver Arrows’<\/a> gambles failed to pay off in a Grand Prix that saw a mid-race rain shower, two Virtual Safety Car periods and two full Safety Cars.<\/p>\n The first crucial call that backfired occurred before the lights had even gone out \u2013 Russell<\/a> one of five drivers to pit at the end of the Formation Lap for slick tyres. But thanks to a first lap crash involving Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, an immediate VSC period was called and that hampered Russell\u2019s attempts to keep his hard tyres up to temperature.<\/p>\n The Briton did start to make some progress back through the field as the rain fell, his Mercedes looking well balanced in the wet conditions, but then came a second call to move back to the hard tyre again as the track dried.<\/p>\n With Fernando Alonso<\/a> having pitted for slicks half a lap before, it became apparent that Alonso was struggling and soon Russell was also in a similar position.<\/p>\n Once again he could not get the C2 rubber up to temperature and spun off into the gravel \u2013 fortunately keeping clear of the barriers. In the end he did hold onto P10 at the flag, which was a small consolation from a very disappointing Grand Prix.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything just went wrong at every single point to be honest,\u201d Russell explained. “I feel at the beginning, pitting to slicks was not a stupid decision as we knew it was going to be dry for 25 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we had 15 minutes\u2019 worth of [Virtual] Safety Car and that didn\u2019t allow us to warm the tyres, it didn\u2019t allow us to [utilise] the gains of when it was dry. By the end of that stint, we were five seconds a lap faster than the wet runners.<\/p>\n \u201cThen at the end maybe I called to pit one or two laps early, but I wasn\u2019t expecting the hard tyre and of course then it all just went wrong. Really disappointing day, if you play it safe, you\u2019ll come home with a safe result and that\u2019s not really what we were going for.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite having a new set of mediums, Mercedes didn’t fit those or any of the softs onto Russell’s car \u2013 which Lance Stroll used to good effect in the early stages of the race. And, as Nico Hulkenberg showed with his run from P19 to third<\/a>, there were big points available to anyone who made the right calls in a dramatic race.<\/p>\n \u201cI think at the beginning with the information we had, it was totally justifiable but the call at the end was not right, that\u2019s on me,\u201d Russell concluded.<\/p>\n “If you have a fast car, you can afford to do what you want, and you\u2019ll always find yourself in a good position. At the moment unfortunately we don\u2019t have that luxury.”<\/p>\n