George Russell has criticised McLaren’s “pretty infuriating” tactics during the F1 Qatar Grand Prix sprint race.
The Mercedes driver started second but immediately lost out to Oscar Piastri at Turn 1. Russell saw several attempts to repass Piastri rebuffed by some robust defending from the Australian.
Russell ultimately had to settle for third place behind the McLaren duo, who swapped positions coming out of the final corner as Lando Norris gifted the win to Piastri as payback for being handed victory in the Brazil sprint race by his teammate when he was in still in title contention.
The Briton was left frustrated by McLaren’s tactics, with Norris intentionally keeping Piastri within his DRS range for most of the 19-lap race to aid his defence from Russell, who appeared to have more pace.
“It was very close going into Turn One on a couple of occasions,” Russell said. “It was so frustrating every lap Lando Norris backing up and giving Oscar Piastri the DRS.
“I understand why they did that but when you’re out here and fighting and you want to put a race on for the fans, it was just pretty infuriating. Nevertheless it was P3, this afternoon [qualifying] is going to be the important one.”
Russell added: “I struggled towards the end but I think Lando had some good pace, Oscar was struggling a little bit.
“It would have been good to go head-to-head with Lando and see what the true pace would have been, I think he had quite a lot in the pocket just giving Oscar the DRS.”
Piastri praises McLaren team work
George Russell and Oscar Piastri do battle in Qatar
Piastri admitted he was grateful for the help from Norris after taking too much out of his tyres in the opening laps.
“It was about defence for the whole race to be honest, I had a good start and a good Turn One but I didn’t quite had the pace,” Piastri explained.
“I killed the front a little bit early on. I was struggling a bit for the rest of the sprint but there was some great teamwork and without that help, it would have been a much more difficult sprint. It’s nice to have McLaren one-two.
“It was a good show of team work, something we discussed before the race. I guess you can say the favour has been returned. Good race, good points. A bit tricky to keep George behind but a good race for the team.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports F1: “Russell was on a set with only one lap, whilst both Oscar and Lando were on a set with two laps.
“Here at this circuit, the new tyre loses grip very rapidly so we had a bit of deficit from a tyre point of view, which we needed to manage. in the Sprint. At the same time, we also had a rear wing configuration which was good in the corners but a little bit slow on the straights.
“So the race required a bit of collaboration between our two drivers with Lando supporting Oscar with DRS, and was executed very well, brilliant driving from Lando.”