Russell felt like former F1 race winner Pastor Maldonado at Portimao

George Russell says he felt like former Williams and Lotus F1 driver Pastor Maldonado with the number of oversteer moments he suffered during the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Russell made a comparison to his attempts of overtaking at Portimao to Maldonado’s attempts of overtaking Max Verstappen at the 2015 Austrian Grand Prix, where he nearly lost the rear of his Lotus into Turn 1 while trying to overtake the Dutchman.

“It was a good race,” Russell said. “The car felt great, the pace was good. I had some massive moments when I was behind Ocon when I was trying to overtake him and Alex. I had another behind Giovinazzi later in the race when I tried to overtake him into Turn 3.

“It was a bit of Pastor Maldonado... like in the Red Bull Ring [in 2015], with Verstappen when he massively lost it. So I felt a bit like Maldonado then. Not something I was expecting to say after this race.”

Despite running well inside of the top ten for much of the race, the Mercedes junior could only manage 14th in the final classification.

Russell still hasn’t scored a point since making a debut at the start of 2019 and rued a lack of retirements at Portimao which would have allowed him to break his duck.

“It’s just bloody typical every time we have a good result there’s not this crazy, chaotic race,” Russell added. We’ve yet to score a point this year but the races we do great - Silverstone finished 12th, another race we finished 11th.

“Today, we finished 14th but 19 people finished and you don’t have five retirements of drivers that are in the top ten. It will come but plenty of positives to take.”