Russell realistic about Abu Dhabi opportunities as he admits ‘anything higher than P4 was not really a possibility’

George Russell downplayed Mercedes’ chances of progressing to the podium in Abu Dhabi as he once again found himself on the outskirts of the top-three fight, settling for fourth place in Qualifying.

The Briton looked to be firmly in the mix for a front row start as he ended Q2 on top, but as his rivals battled it out for pole position on fresh tyres, he could only get within 0.438s of Max Verstappen’s pace-setting lap time.

With the three drivers ahead of him all in contention for this season’s championship, Russell isn’t quite targeting the same ambition, but he appeared constantly aware of how their competition could benefit him. Preparing for his final lap of the session, he asked his race engineer to let him out behind Verstappen as he would “probably give me a tow” in order to stop a McLaren driver from taking a front row spot.

The tactic didn’t quite work out, and he was further hindered by the rear of his car feeling unstable in Q3 – onboards showed him fighting to stay on the track and avoid the barriers, contributing to his eventual P4 finish.

“Obviously we were near the top of the leaderboard in Q1 and at the top in Q2, but those three around me were on the old tyres and they were matching my lap times,” he later said. “We knew they were going to be a step ahead, and I knew that I had to do something special just to even be in the fight.

“I wasn’t very happy with Q3 but honestly, anything higher than P4 was not really a possibility today so we’ll take it.

“I don’t think that we’re in the fight with those three again, but I can’t imagine Max is just going to sit there and let them all drive off into the sunset and finish 1-2-3. There could be opportunities – we’ll play it by ear.

“For sure, the team are going to be up all night making plans, but I’m pretty confident those plans are going to be pretty different by Lap 1, Lap 2, every single lap of the race. It’ll be an interesting one.”

His team mate Kimi Antonelli similarly dropped down in the order as Qualifying went on, going from third in Q1 to 14th in Q2 after putting an eventful FP3 behind him. In the pit lane, the Italian was released straight into Yuki Tsunoda's path and the two collided, damaging both cars.

The change in performance throughout Qualifying left Antonelli searching for answers as he explained: “It’s obviously very frustrating. I struggled a lot with the rear in Q2 and it was just difficult. In Q1 I went much quicker than Q2. I’m just really struggling to understand what happened there.

“I think it’s not going to be an easy race tomorrow. Degradation is going to be big. I just need to maximise the result and try to do the best race possible.”