George Russell: “It was probably the most difficult race of the season so far”

George Russell believes the Mexico City Grand Prix was one of his most difficult races of the 2021 season so far, with the Briton ending the day sixteenth having been inside the points-paying positions early on.

Having started sixteenth following a penalty for a gearbox change, Russell avoided the chaos at turn one to run ninth and felt at that point that he was on course for a good result.

But the Williams Racing driver endured a tough day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with driver after driver finding their way ahead of him, and Russell ended the day well outside the points in sixteenth position.

“It was probably the most difficult race of the season so far,” said Russell.  “We made a good start and had moved up to P9 from P16 on lap one which was relatively strong, and I thought we could be on for a good result.

“However, we did not have the pace after that and went backwards so there’s lots to review. It wasn’t a very enjoyable afternoon but the positive is that this Grand Prix is a unique race with the temperature management that is required, so hopefully our pace in Brazil will be better than here.”

“My race came undone at the start” – Nicholas Latifi

Team-mate Nicholas Latifi was equally frustrated with his race in Mexico City, with the Canadian ending down in seventeenth having lost out at the start.

Latifi was compromised at the first corner, and after believing he was set to gain positions as Russell had, he in fact dropped down the order and was left with a difficult race in prospect.  He says he will have to look back to see why he lost out so badly when Russell made so much progress on that opening lap.

“Unfortunately, my race came undone at the start,” said Latifi.  “I’ll have to watch the video back to see what happened in that first lap.

“I thought I was going to come out of the first few corners gaining a couple of positions from the cars going off, but I stayed on track to avoid them and ended up losing out quite a bit. After that, with the pace we had, it was just a race of blue flags.

“It was an afternoon to forget but now it’s onwards to Brazil.”

Nicholas Latifi ended seventeenth in a race filled with blue flags – Credit: Williams Racing