Given that he qualified on pole for the British GP 12 months ago you might think that George Russell would be disappointed to be starting only fourth this year.
In fact the Mercedes driver was more than happy with the final outcome after what had been a tricky weekend for the team – until with perfect timing he pulled off a great lap at the end of Q3.
Lower temperatures at Silverstone were expected to play to the strengths of the W16, but that didn’t really happen.
Eighth fastest on Friday and in the same position in FP3, Russell had a tricky Q1 that saw him asking his engineer to “stay calm” as they discussed the evolving run plan.
He got through in 11th and was ninth in Q2 – cutting it a bit fine, but job done nevertheless.
Then in Q3 he logged his best lap of the weekend to outpace the Ferraris and put himself in fourth, behind Max Verstappen and the two McLaren drivers.
“Really pleased with that last lap,” he said when I asked him about the session. “Every lap until that point, we were anywhere from five-tenths to eight-tenths off the pace, and we were scratching our heads a little bit today, because we thought with the cooler conditions, things would come more towards us.
“And it was only about last lap in Q3 when, when it did. So it’s always good when your best lap of the weekend is the last one.”
When I asked about the “stay calm” comment he noted that it’s not easy to get everything right as you try to progress through the sessions in the most efficient way.
“Q1 is a really challenging session for probably all the teams other than McLaren, because you want to try and get to Q3 on two sets of tyres,” he said.
“And to do that, you need to get through Q1 on one set of tyres, and also get through Q2 on one set of tyres as well.
“I think it’s always a bit frantic on the pit wall sometimes, and from my side in the car, I’ve got no visibility of what’s going on. So I was just like, ‘Let’s just chill out a bit.’ Tell me what you’re thinking, and we can discuss.”
He had no doubts about what conditions he wanted on Sunday.
“Cold and dry, to be honest. It’s clear whenever it’s warm, we struggle. Whenever it’s cooler, it’s better.
“So as I said yesterday, we’re working so hard to improve this, we have been fortunate that we’re racing here this weekend, because two weekends ago in England, it was 34 degrees. So that’s not how we should be racing.”
P4 was a decent outcome, but Russell conceded that the team was hoping for me before the start of the weekend given the cooler weather.
However it’s not just about ambient and track temperatures, but also the loads that the loads that the corners put through the tyres.
“I do think today was probably, on the whole, less competitive than we were potentially expecting,” he said.
“I think the likes of Ferrari have been very competitive this weekend, which was a bit of a surprise. I know McLaren have brought some little upgrades. We didn’t really bring anything, but we haven’t brought anything for a while now. So we just need to try and understand that.
“It is cool, but of course, still this circuit is so quick. You’re putting so much energy in the tyre, so much temperature of the tyres.
“The tyres are running hotter here compared to what they’re running in Canada. And Canada was 50 degrees track, here is 25 degrees track, but just because of the layout, so that gives it some perspective.”
Meanwhile it was a solid if unspectacular session for Russell’s team mate Kimi Antonelli, who earned seventh place behind the two Ferrari drivers before his Austrian GP crash penalty dropped him to 10th.
“I think was was okay,” said the Italian. “The lap was not amazing, but I’ve been struggling the whole qualifying in high-speed, just struggling with stability, and that killed a bit of confidence throughout the session.
“And I just think it was tough on that side, and especially Sector 2, and start of Sector 3 was always a bit of a struggle because of that. And obviously not super happy, because I have the penalty tomorrow, but we’ll try to build from there.”
Adam Cooper F1 