Russell ‘kicking’ himself after mistake in Canada

Mercedes driver George Russell said he was gutted after failing to finish the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The 25-year-old driver started in fourth, and was running in that position as he tried to pressurise Fernando Alonso ahead into a mistake.

Instead, the error came from the Mercedes man as he ran wide over the kerbs and clattered into the wall.

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“I just went a bit deep into the right-hander, and then from the left I just touched the kerb, but I clearly hit it with the bottom of the car,” Russell said afterwards.

“The next thing I knew I was up in the air and when I landed, lost the rear and I was in the wall. [I’m] kicking myself because such a small error has big consequences and that’s how it is on circuits like this. So kicking myself from my side.”

Russell crash cost Mercedes points

Russell did manage to make it back out and re-join the race down in last position, soon found himself back in the mix – even opportunistically making a double overtake on the squabbling Kevin Magnussen and Nyck de Vries.

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“I did a good job to get back into the mix and obviously had a bit of an issue with the brakes. It all stemmed from my mistake. Sorry to the team, they put so much hard work in. The car was performing well, we weren’t expecting to be competitive here, yet we were putting up a good fight. It looks good for the future, just disappointed in the now.

“[It] just wasn’t good enough and there were at least 12 points there on the table for us as a team,” Russell said.

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