George Russell blames “overpushing” for qualifying shunt: “It caught me by surprise”

George Russell has admitted his spin at the penultimate corner in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix ‘caught him by surprise’.

Russell crashed in the dying moments of Q3 at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday, bringing a premature end to qualifying in Austin.

It meant no one could improve due to the yellow flags caused by Russell’s stricken Mercedes.

This left Russell a disappointing sixth on the grid, 0.6s off Lando Norris.

It continued Mercedes’ disappointing day, with a lack of pace in the sprint, and Lewis Hamilton getting knocked out in Q1.

Speaking after qualifying to Sky Sports, Russell said of his crash: “Not too sure to be honest. It was a really great lap until Turn 12.

“I was up four and a half tenths and lost a bit at T12, similar to Lewis yesterday, and lost loads of lap time. I still was a tenth or so quicker than my previous lap but I went into the penultimate corner, turned in and then the thing just went on me.

“It caught me by surprise. Maybe I was overpushing. Just pretty disappointing. The damage done to the car and the work that has to be done tonight.

“A little bit confused why yesterday Lewis and I were both in the fight for pole, and today, we were nowhere.”

Mercedes showed great pace on Friday, with Russell narrowly missing out on pole in sprint qualifying.

24 hours later, Mercedes are clearly the fourth-fastest team in Austin.

“The car didn’t feel as together but the pace was coming easily,” he added. “Today it wasn’t. This morning, also this afternoon. It just seems like such a theme at the moment.

“When we’ve found a sweet spot we’ve got a car capable of pole and race wins, but when we’ve not got that sweet spot we’re nowhere. Apologies to the team.

“They’ve done so much hard work bringing these upgrades. It’s really disappointing from my side.”