Mercedes F1 had a masterful race in Las Vegas, with a double led by George Russell. Starting from pole, the Briton did not tremble and led throughout the 50 laps, to achieve his second success of the year, his third in his career.
“I have a flight in a few hours but I'm clearly not going to take it! I'm going to enjoy it with my team. It's been a dream weekend, we were very fast all weekend” said Russell, who told Toto Wolff he would stay in Nevada as soon as the line was crossed.
“Vegas is a crazy place, and when you drive here, see all that in the landscape… I can't describe this place. We had a weekend of domination, victory, pole position, double with Lewis, thank you to the team who made this happen.”
The Briton admits, however, that he feared a more difficult race: “I was waiting for something to happen. The two races where I was on pole before, there was always chaos. Rain, dry, something happening, the red flag in Brazil. But I was confident here, I created a nice gap, and it worked. I'm so happy.”
Hamilton regrets not 'getting the job done' on Saturday
Lewis Hamilton completes the double and can blame himself for having missed his Q3 the day before. Starting tenth, the seven-time world champion moved up to second place and was for a long time the fastest driver on the track, coming back to within 5 seconds of his teammate in the final laps.
“First of all, I want to say congratulations to Max, who wins the title with a few races remaining” Hamilton said. “If I had done my job yesterday, it would have been different today. But I had fun coming up from tenth place. I don't know why the car was so fast, but it's the best car I've ever had. we had.”
Asked about the difficulties of the cool night, Hamilton assures that it is not the most difficult: “The climate is not the worst, it's especially the time with the race which is very late. We go to bed at 5 a.m., we wake up in the middle of the day, and it's very difficult because It plays with your pace and it’s cold, maybe that’s why we were so fast.”
He now hopes to end his collaboration with Mercedes with good results: “If the car is like that in the next races, we will be in a good position to fight with the guys in front. The championship is decided so we will try to achieve the best possible results.”
