George Russell’s final qualifying session for Williams was a disappointment as he was eliminated in Q1 for the third time in 2021 and outqualified by team-mate Nicholas Latifi for only the second time in their 38 events together as Formula 1 team-mates – despite believing the car was “the best it’s felt in a long time”.
Russell, who joins Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate next season, had outpaced Latifi by six-tenths of a second and was 14th fastest after his first run in Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Q1.
But he was frustrated on his final run by a combination of struggling to build tyre temperature on his preparation lap and opting for a single push lap rather than a five-lap run that would have permitted him to have two quick laps.
After aborting his final lap while just over four-tenths slower on the approach to Turn 12 and returning to the pitlane, Russell said over the radio “we didn’t need to risk it, we could have gone three [laps] – fast, slow, fast – we had the pace”.
That left him 17th, with Latifi improving on his final run using the same single-push-lap strategy.
He later revealed he had favoured that runplan given his confidence in the underlying pace of the car.
“We weren’t so sure on our pace after FP3, so we wanted to put all of our eggs in one basket for that last timed lap, do the one [lap] and get everything together,” said Russell.
“We had the pace and I was asking to do fast-slow-fast, which the opportunity was there for following the red flag.
“Then, when we went out on track, everyone was on their push laps and I was on my out-lap and had to not have the out-lap I wished for. The tyres were not in the window whatsoever, so it was quite frustrating.
“I felt like today we comfortably had the pace to get through to Q2 and maybe more. The car felt by far the best it’s felt in a long time, so it’s pretty frustrating to miss an opportunity like that.
“But nevertheless, it’s tomorrow that’s important. “
Particularly costly for Russell was having to let the two Mercedes drivers through at the end of his preparation lap.
He then had a slight rear-end snap coming out of the final corner, followed by a little understeer that sent him wide and led to the rear again stepping out at the exit of Turn 1 as he had to apply more lock to compensate for the under-rotation.
Next came a lock-up approaching the Turn 5 hairpin, Russell running wide and compromising his run down the long straight to Turn 6.
Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said that pushing hard was key to getting the tyre temperatures right in sector 3 on preparation laps, and that was something Russell couldn’t do.
“You need to go quite quickly through the final sector, that’s certainly what we think,” said Robson. “When it becomes a car park, it’s just a complete pain and very frustrating.
“That’s the bit we think we were missing. We did everything we could in the two sectors before that when he was completely clear of traffic but it wasn’t enough for the tyres to hang on ready for the start of the timed lap.”
Robson suggested the red flag during Q1, thrown after Mick Schumacher demolished a bollard at the apex of Turn 16 that was then run over by Lando Norris, also had a small impact on the session for Williams.
While both Williams drivers were heading for the pits to end their first runs when the session was stopped, it did lead to the unusual timings used by rival teams in the final 6m25s of the session once it restart.
“It didn’t do anything particularly for us directly as we would have been in the garage during that phase anyway,” said Robson.
“But what it did do was force some of the cars who had chosen to go early who then would have been out of our way and out of that melee, they ended up in that melee.
“They chose to re-run the tyres so they had to do a fast-slow-fast in order to get them hot again, I assume. So there was some indirect knock on effect for us but nothing too significant.”
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will be Russell’s 59th start for Williams having raced for the team since 2019. It will move him into outright 11th place in terms of most starts for Williams, one ahead of Pastor Maldonado.
