George Russell said he was "really disappointed" as he insisted a "misjudgement" by his Mercedes team had cost him pole position for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Russell drove impressively throughout a hugely-challenging wet qualifying session at Interlagos but ultimately missed out on pole position by two tenths to McLaren's Lando Norris. The Mercedes driver had led Norris by four tenths of a second after their first runs in Q3, but was then told to abort his second run when he was being held up by the Williams of Alex Albon.
Mercedes thought that Russell would have time to complete another push lap, but the rain intensified moments later and prevented anyone from going faster for the seven minutes of the session that remained. Russell reacted with fury over team radio, questioning the instruction for him to abort and insisting that regardless of the time he was losing behind Albon, he would have been able to better Norris' time. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player As Russell is serving a five-place grid penalty in Brazil for taking a new internal combustion engine, he would not have started from pole in any case, and will now begin Sunday's race in seventh.
"I think it was just a bit of miscommunication," Russell said. "I need to speak with the team because we believed we'd get another lap before the rain came in. "So, I was on a really strong lap and I was asked to back off because I caught up Albon, and then obviously the rain came.
"So, yeah, it was very disappointing. I need to understand how it happened and why we got that wrong. "But I felt very strong, the whole session.
Similar to Lando, I had more confidence in the wet than I had in the dry. But yeah, I definitely felt pole was there for the taking." Asked whether he considered overriding the instruction to abort his lap, Russell added: "They've got the weather forecast in front of them and I don't. And this is where you need that trust and you're relying on one another.
"Obviously, it was the wrong decision, and it was a decision that I think, as soon as it was made, I think we knew it was the wrong one because already they could actually feel the rain pouring harder." Despite his clear frustration, Russell insisted his race engineer Marcus Dudley, along with other colleagues, weren't necessary responsible given the decision would have been led by the information they were seeing. "We need to understand, we're relying on a lot of systems. We can't point the finger at somebody," Russell said.
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