George Russell says it’s not a surprise that his Mercedes Formula 1 team is fast in Qatar given the smooth nature of the track.
Russell initially qualified second, having gone wide when he came across a slow moving Max Verstappen just before he started his lap.
Having earned pole the Dutchman was later given a one-place penalty for moving unnecessarily slowly, thus swapping the positions of the two front row men, and giving Russell his fourth top spot of the season.
Speaking before that decision was made Russell suggested that the Verstappen incident had prevented him from earning pole on merit.
“To be honest, my first lap was really strong,” he said. “I was really pleased with that. I think it was a couple of tenths clear. And then I just didn’t improve on that last lap.
“Obviously, I had a really scrappy out lap with the near collision with Max, and I ended up going through the gravel two corners prior to opening my lap. So it was not a good start. So that was probably the 55 milliseconds.
“It’s great to be in this groove at the moment, four front row starts in a row, which has been really pleasing considering where we were three or four races ago.
“And the race pace this morning looked great. So Max did a great job. Red Bull seemed to turn it around a little bit since yesterday, but let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
Russell had a clear idea why Mercedes has been so fast recently.
“Well, I think these last two races, the circuits have played in our favour,” he said. “We know when we can get the car low and stiff on a smooth track, it works pretty well.
“Brazil, we didn’t actually have the pace. We were very slow in the sprint, in the sprint qualifying, but of course it was a wet qualifying on the Sunday morning, so that evened things out a little bit.
“So I think we flattered ourself a bit in Brazil, but these last two races, when we really, analyse it. I don’t think it’s a surprise the car is performing as well as it has shown.”
Regarding the race he said: “I think it’s going to be a really close fight between all four teams. Ferrari looked on the same pace as Lando and myself this morning. I hope it’s going to be a good one, but the tyres seem pretty resilient. Maybe we’ll see another DRS train, I don’t know.”
Adam Cooper F1 