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As the 2020 season draws to a
close the performances of the Williams Racing Team have been such that
despite been able to see one of their drivers achieve the goal of securing a
Q2 qualifying and their lap times being competitive against the likes of
teams like Haas and Alfa Romeo it still has not produce a points coring
result. Races in 2020 have seen the Williams drivers struggle to match their
Saturday performances with both George Russell and Nicholas Latifi
struggling to again show their Saturday pace.
But in the recent Portuguese Grand Prix where even though the team again
failed to achieve a points scoring result George Russell was able to produce
a performance that saw him demonstrate a level of competitiveness far above
what the team strived to achieve during their disastrous 2019 season. For
Russell in post race interviews he made it clear that his performance
despite the lack of points was what he believed to be his best performance
so far and coming off from this it backed up the view that he should remain
with Williams Racing.
the race in Portugal would see George start from 14th and finish 14th but
despite this he would come away satisfied with his performances. In a recent
interview with Formula1.com George spoke of his feelings after the race.
George said: “Really enjoyed it, probably the best race I’ve had in F1 to
date. It’s just typical that when we have our best races almost everybody
finishes and there’s not a fortunate Safety Car at the right moment. If
there was a Virtual Safety Car or Safety Car at that phase we’d probably
have finished in the points; who knows?
“But you know I was really pleased as a whole, this weekend’s been great.
I’m getting more and more confident race by race, racing other drivers,
racing other cars, good battles with Ocon at the start, with Alex,
Giovinazzi and Vettel later in the race. All in all, it was positive.”
But the frustrations of not scoring points George made it clear that
Williams have to maintain their approach to their races doing something
risky simply in order to try and score points.
George added: “We’d have probably been in the points had this race been like
the Nurburgring, when you had five cars in the top 10 retiring, as we’d have
come home P9 – for example.
“I’m just pleased the car was feeling great, yesterday, overall probably the
best weekend I’ve had in Formula 1 as a whole, moving forward in the race,
getting stuck in with cars I shouldn’t be battling, with Ocon for one who
definitely did some questionable defensive driving but nevertheless, the day
will come for us.
“Perhaps we need to gamble more to capitalise on some unique circumstance
but ultimately we’re not here to roll the dice week in week out, we’re here
to get the best result possible on merit and that’s what we race for. If we
turn up to every single race weekend just rolling the dice and hoping for
the best you’re just going to lose motivation as nine times out of 10 it
won’t go your way.”
As for how the performances of the Williams drivers compared to other teams
George made it also clear that he firmly believes that the Williams FW43 is
certainly not the slowest car.
“I think we’re on par with Alfa Romeo and I’d say Haas are slightly behind
us at the moment. But I think our race team often get it pretty nailed and I
think that’s what’s helping us at the moment."
For George his performance in
the Portuguese goes a very long way in supporting the case that Williams
Racing should retain his services for the 2021 even though based on the
current round of rumours they may have other options that could be worthy of
consideration. For George he is confident that he will remain with Williams
in 2021 and that with performances as in Portugual it shows that he is
worthy of his place with the team.
in a previous George added "I’ve
got a contract, I’ll be on the grid next year, I’m pretty confident of
that." |
