Russell warns against unrepresentative times

For his debut with Mercedes replacing Lewis Hamilton, George Russell received the memo from his boss Toto wolff : don't give in to euphoria, don't get excited after setting the 2 best times on the opening day of the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

« I think my times are a bit misleading and don't represent the true hierarchy, commented the hero of the day, who also confided that he was not yet completely comfortable behind the wheel. I struggled during FP2, especially with a lot of fuel on board. This will be key for Sunday. 

I still have work to do to improve the car and refine the settings. It will be a different story tomorrow.

There is so much to digest. I'm doing my best to assimilate everything as quickly as possible, but jumping into a car with two and a half days of preparation is not an easy thing. 

Just because I was the fastest today doesn’t mean I will be the fastest tomorrow. Verstappen was incredibly fast in long stints. 

Valtteri was fastest in FP2 but his best time was erased when he probably only gained half a tenth so I'm probably a tenth and a half behind him ». 

On the other side of the garage, Bottas did not deviate from its usual calm, despite an opening day that was complicated to say the least, concluded with the 4th and 11th times.

« During the 1st session, during my first attempt, I damaged the flat bottom of the car by going beyond the curbs at turn 1, he commented. After that, the session was a bit of a waste of time. 

In Free Practice 2, I felt better but I didn't set any representative time with the soft tire. One of my laps was more or less correct but the time was erased for not respecting the limits of the track.

The positive point is the regularity in long stints even if Red Bull looks very competitive with the medium tire ». 

When debriefing this Friday, we imagine that Bottas will also take a close look at the performance of his new teammate...