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Williams Formula 1 driver George Russell says finally scoring points for the team “means more than I can put into words”, having been driven to tears by the accomplishment.
Russell has already scored points in F1 in the past, during his one-off as Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes stand-in in last year’s Sakhir Grand Prix, but it took him until his 48th race for Williams to give the Grove outfit a top-10 finish.
This was despite Russell having never been outqualified by a team-mate at Williams, and curiously the points for ninth in the Hungarian Grand Prix came during the first race weekend of the year that he failed to make it out of the first segment of qualifying.
“Yeah, as Kimi Raikkonen says, f**king finally, no? It meant so much today,” said Russell, having fought off the likes of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo to finish ninth, a second behind team-mate Nicholas Latifi who made a huge jump up the order in the race’s first lap melee.
“More than just finishing P9. It’s been – this is a result of three years of hard work, disappointment, proper tough times. I guess following Imola this year, following Austria, probably part of us thought ‘is it ever going to happen?’. And just so pleased to be able to finally capitalise.
“Maybe today wasn’t, of all the races, the one we probably deserved to score the points. But I think this is a fair result, from everything, and really so happy for Nicholas to come home in the points as well. These points for the team mean so much.”
A clip of Russell coming to a post-race TV interview in tears of joy and disbelief garnered much attention on social media in the aftermath of the race.
And when asked by The Race just how much the accomplishment meant emotionally given that he and Williams have looked so close in the past and often lost their points hopes in dramatic ways, Russell said: “I mean, I literally just shed a tear, which I was not expecting.
“I probably wouldn’t have shed a tear if I won my first race, to be honest. That’s how much it means. It means more than I can put into words.
“The ride we’ve been through these past three years, you’re fighting for something for three years and you finally get it. And again, it was an incredible stint on our side of the garage, the second stint, it was probably the best stint of my whole career.
“Keeping Danny Ric[Ricciardo] behind, keeping Max [Verstappen] behind, closing the gap by 20 seconds to the cars ahead. It was exceptional.
“I fought with everything I had, as I do every single race, and I finally came home with something.”
