Russell explains why he was " relieved to have finished third" at Las Vegas

Having crossed the finish line in third place at last Saturday's Las Vegas Grand Prix, Mercedes driver George Russell explained why he was "relieved to have finished" the Nevadan race on the rostrum

George Russell had an ordinary start and managed to capitalize on Lando Norris’ small error at Turn 1 to move himself up into second place on the opening lap.

Although he looked very competitive in the opening stages of the race and put race leader Max Verstappen under pressure, he struggled to keep his tyre alive and elected to pit earlier than his rivals.

As a result of his early pit stop, he managed to close in on Verstappen after the first round of pit stops, but he used too much tyre life. While he was trying to look after his tyres, Norris closed in on him and managed to go past Russell. The Mercedes driver finished third, but he inherited second place after Norris’ disqualification for a technical infringement.

His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli started from P17 after his difficult qualifying session. The Bologna-born driver started on the softs, pitted early for the hards under the Virtual Safety Car intervention.

Although several drivers struggled to keep the tyres in good shape, Antonelli somehow managed to make that compound last all the way to the flag.

In the closing stages, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc closed in on Antonelli, putting him under great pressure, but he managed to hold the McLaren and the Ferrari driver at bay for lap after lap.

In the closing stages, he managed to escape from Leclerc enough to finish ahead of the Monegasque despite a five-second time penalty for jumping the start. Ultimately, he came home fifth, but he inherited P3 with the later disqualification of both McLaren cars.

In certain stages of the 50-lap race, Russell looked to be in contention for the victory, but he ultimately had to give up on any hopes as he started to struggle with grip.

"That was a difficult race, so I’m relieved to have finished P3 and added another podium to our tally. I had an opportunity to put Max under pressure in both stints but doing that hurt the tyre.

"That was particularly the case on the Hard tyre and made the rest of my race challenging. At one point I thought we were going to have to make another stop but thankfully we had a good gap behind us, and we could manage our pace to the end to take third.

Commenting on his team-mate's result, Russell added: "Kimi did an amazing job to finish P4 on the road and P5 in the final classification. Collectively, it’s a great result for the team as we come away here with another good bunch of points.

"Our aim is to hold second in the Constructors’ Championship come Abu Dhabi and we now head to Qatar with our advantage intact," concluded Russell.