George Russell said he paid the price for a lack of performance from his Mercedes W15 by pushing too hard and crashing in qualifying in Austin – an incident that has obliged him to start from the pitlane.
Russell went off in Q3, ending the second runs of the rest of the field and leaving himself in sixth place on the grid.
The crash damaged the upgraded floor and other parts on his W15. Mercedes only has two sets in Austin.
Lewis Hamilton offered to donate the new parts from his car but Russell is reverting to an older spec, which will involve a significant rebuilding job by the crew.
On sprint weekends drivers can go back to an earlier declared spec while under parc ferme rules, but because of the work required the team had to drop out of parc ferme. That triggered a pitlane start.
“All season when the car is in the sweet spot we’re fighting for poles and wins,” he said when asked by this writer about his session.
“Yesterday we were both fighting for pole, and today we were both almost out in Q1. I really pushed it on that last lap, and ultimately trying to find performance that wasn’t there, and paid the price.
“And I’m really just disappointed with myself, because everyone’s worked so hard to bring the upgrades – now that’s in the bin.”
Russell couldn’t explain why the W15 was not as competitive as on Friday, when he qualified second for the sprint.
“We don’t have the answers,” he said. “Because we keep finding ourselves in this position. It’s how the cars interacting with the tyres, the temperature, small changes, the wind, small changes.
“But it has been the story of the season. Old upgrades, new upgrades, either we’re there, or we’re half a second, six-tenths off.”
Regarding the damage he said: “Right now the concern is about the bits. We will have to revert on the upgrades Lewis has kindly offered his ones, but we’re not going to swap. So I don’t know what, what’s going to be happening now, but that’s the biggest concern.”
Adam Cooper F1 