Russell feels Kimi cost him first F1 points

Jamie Woodhouse
George-Russell-PA

George Russell felt Kimi Raikkonen crash cost him first F1 points at Eifel GP.

George Russell felt he could have scored the first points of his career before a race-ending tangle with Kimi Raikkonen at the Eifel GP.

Raikkonen tried to make a move on Russell down the inside at Turn 1 of the Nurburgring, but would understeer into the side of the Briton, almost flipping his Williams over.

The contact would cause a puncture but also race-ending damage to Russell’s FW43.

Raikkonen received a ten-second time penalty for the incident on a day where he set a new Formula 1 record by making his 323rd race start, and without that contact Russell felt he could have reached a milestone of his own, that being his first points in Formula 1.

“It was obviously frustrating,” Russell is quoted by Crash.net.

“I actually overtook Sebastian in the chicane before, but he then got the run on me on the exit, which I don’t think was shown on the TV.

“[That] allowed him to have the DRS and obviously Kimi was behind. I was on the outside, I left plenty of space. But I think Kimi just locked up behind Sebastian and then lost the rear.

“Sometimes it’s racing, we’re all pushing hard and it’s not easy sometimes. But it’s frustrating because the car was feeling good and the way the race went I think we could have scored points. It’s all going against us at the moment unfortunately.”

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Both Haas and Alfa Romeo were able to score points at the Eifel GP courtesy of Romain Grosjean and Antonio Giovinazzi respectively.

But Russell believes both teams are no faster than Williams, it’s just a case of the luck being with them and not with Williams in recent races.

“I’m realistic and as nice as it would be to score a point or two or three, ultimately the car is not quick enough,” he admitted.

“We need to continue to work really hard to bring more performance to the car because we don’t want to be lucking into these events, we want to be there on merit. And ultimately that’s where we are at the moment.

“The likes of Haas and Alfa, things have just gone their way really in these races. They are no quicker than us and I don’t personally believe they’ve done anything better than us, things have just gone their way when there’s been these very specific opportunities and it hasn’t for us.

“There’s been a number of times when we’ve had really good races and finished quite high up the order relatively but there haven’t been five midfield cars break down which is the difference between scoring points or not.”

There was no apology from Raikkonen for the incident, who simply believed there was nothing he could do.

“We touched each other and that’s it,” he told reporters.

“All three of us were together and I locked the rears a little bit and got a bit sideways and there wasn’t much else I could do.”

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