A disrupted day of practice has caused some complications for the teams and drivers gearing up for the Japanese Grand Prix.
George Russell is advocating for a “common sense” approach as they head into qualifying following a tumultuous day of practice at Suzuka.
The initial hour-long session saw interruptions, notably a red flag incident caused by Logan Sargeant’s crash in his Williams. The second session encountered intermittent rain, leading six drivers to remain in their garages, unwilling to risk venturing out onto the track.
The cautious approach observed by some teams stemmed largely from the new regulations concerning intermediate tires introduced this year. Teams chose to err on the side of caution, ensuring they retained enough tire sets to cover potential rainy conditions throughout the weekend.
Mercedes driver Russell, who posted the fourth quickest time in FP1, trailing Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by half a second, is hopeful that a favorable decision will be made regarding tire allocation for the rest of the weekend.
Reflecting on the day’s events, particularly FP2, Russell remarked, “It’s such a shame for all the fans here, and for people from home who have traveled three-quarters of the way around the world, to not do any laps is pretty annoying.
“I hope the FIA allows all the teams to carry over a set of dry tires into FP3 because ordinarily in FP3 we don’t do many laps, just practicing for qualifying, so that will be great for us, great for the fans.
“So I hope common sense prevails there, and I hope we find a solution for these kinds of conditions because this is not the first time this has happened, and it definitely won’t be the last time.”
Russell, much like his teammate Lewis Hamilton, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the W15 on one of Formula 1’s most challenging tracks.
Following Mercedes’ disappointing performance at the previous race in Australia, where the pace was lacking even before Sunday’s race, during which Hamilton retired due to a power unit issue and Russell crashed out on the penultimate lap, improvements were imperative.
Russell acknowledged a discernible improvement, noting, “In FP1, we definitely performed better than expected, so that was a pleasant surprise. The car was feeling really nice to drive, and Lewis and I were really happy with the balance.
“It has been performing better when it’s slightly colder but we’ve been doing a lot of test items to try and make that car a little more consistent when conditions are variable, so time will tell.
“FP2 was definitely a miss for everybody as we had some interesting things we wanted to try but that’s the nature of Formula 1 sometimes.”
Trying to gauge the team’s outlook as they approach qualifying, Russell remarked, “It’s going to be very challenging because it’s a clear one-lap tire in qualifying, you can’t do multiple laps on the tire.
“Most drivers may only have three or four sets for qualifying so you’ve got to be nailing those laps at every opportunity if you want any hope of getting into Q3 with two sets of new tires. I think you’re going to see higher degradation, and that’s where the focus is going to be.”
