George Russell took aim at McLaren after qualifying his Mercedes machine on the front row of the grid for the Qatar Grand Prix, expressing his desire for a ‘proper race’ rather than ‘this team orders stuff’.
The Brit was left frustrated in the sprint race earlier on Saturday after Lando Norris repeatedly dropped back to give team-mate Oscar Piastri DRS, thus allowing him to keep Russell behind in the fight for P2.
This procession frustrated Russell, and the Brit felt that he had the pace to win in different circumstances. He went on to state that what McLaren orchestrated would not excite him from a fan’s perspective.
Russell doubled down on these comments after outqualifying the two McLaren drivers. “[I’m] just excited. Hopefully, we can have a proper race rather than this team orders stuff. It’s going to be a good race. I think we’ll all be going for it.
“It’s actually great that Max is in the mix as well. I was really surprised by their turnaround because they looked really off the pace yesterday, off the pace this morning, and obviously they were both in Q3 and Max in pole, so I think we’ve got a good race on our hands.”
If McLaren are to use their combined powers to inflict more pain on Russell then they will need to do it from behind. Norris will line up in P3 with team-mate Piastri alongside him on the second row.
“Not the position we were hoping for after yesterday and today but the maximum we could do, for sure,” Norris said after wrapping up a frustrating qualifying session at the Lusail International Circuit.
“My lap was pretty good just not quick enough compared to the others. Happy with the lap and happy I got everything out of it, not happy with the result.
“Everyone saw how close it was between all of us throughout qualifying. Not a lot in it between all of us, which gives us hope that we can still go forward. But there are some quick cars behind us.”
