This season, there’s been a lot of talk about “dirty air” in Formula 1. It’s about how closely drivers can follow each other.
Russell, a Mercedes driver, says it’s not just about racing. It’s also about how it affects him inside the car. He mentioned this problem during the Japanese Grand Prix last weekend.
“It’s been a bit of a theme this year,” he said. “But I have had no problem with helmets in practice and qualifying, and then as soon as we get to the race with all the turbulence and cars around there’s lots of buffeting and struggling a bit in this regard.”
He also had a problem with his steering during the race. “Yeah, I’m not too sure where that came from,” he said. “There may be a small flat spot, I just need to assess it.”
Despite these issues, Russell finished the race in seventh place. He even managed to pass Oscar Piastri from McLaren towards the end.
“I had a little bit of a late lunge on him,” Russell said about the move. “Felt like I gave him enough room, but made a bit of contact at the apex. I was a bit surprised to see him go straight on, but at the end, I managed to pass him away.”
Russell thought seventh place was good, considering he started the race from ninth. He also got ahead of Piastri and his own teammate, Lewis Hamilton.
“It was so tight between the four teams after Red Bull,” he explained. “And you’re seeing only a tenth and a half or two-tenths splitting probably six cars in qualifying and ultimately it feels like you finish where you start. So we had a bad day yesterday and paid the price today.
“I think it made sense to start on the hard [after the red flag], it just gave us this flexibility. But I lost loads of time behind Lewis at the beginning.
“Once we pitted the pace was quite strong I think, in line with Charles [Leclerc] and Lando [Norris]. So had we started a few positions higher it would have been a different race.”