Russell 'absolutely sweating' after epic fight with Perez

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George Russell was delighted to be back on the podium this weekend at the end of the 2022 French Grand Prix at Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet.

The 24-year-old Briton has been a model of consistency in 2022 despite the underperformance of the Mercedes W13. He's finished in the top five in all but one of the 12 races so far.

This was his fourth podium of the season, after also finishing in third place in Australia, Spain and Azerbaijan. But it took a huge late race effort to pull it off.

Read also: Verstappen beats Hamilton in France, Leclerc crashes out

"I'm absolutely sweating now. It was a long, tough race," he told the media in parc ferme after the end of the gruelling 53-lap race in blistering conditions.

Starting from sixth place on the grid, Russell initially lost a place to Fernando Alonso but quickly recovered and passed the Alpine on lap 3 to put himself back behind Sergio Perez.

Russell spent the rest of the race dogging the Red Bull, but despite throwing everything he had into multiple attempts to pass Perez, coming closest to pulling it off after Carlos Sainz had managed to charge past them both.

“I saw him struggling when Sainz got past and I had that one opportunity," Russell explained. "For me, I was down the inside.

“The rules are pretty clear," he continued. "It’s front wheel to rear wheel when you’re on the inside. That’s what I had. He didn’t really leave me enough space."

The two touched and Perez briefly cut the chicane, rejoining back ahead of Sainz. While he knew to let Sainz take the position back, he didn't surrender the position to Russell.

The stewards declined to intervene, declaring it a racing incident, and that looked to be it.

However a late Virtual Safety Car following Zhou Guanyu's retirement while the marshals retrieved the stricken Alfa Romeo gave Russell the chance to catch Perez by surprise at the restart.

The battle was far from over and Perez did everything he could to retrieve the position, but Russell was able to hold on all the way to the chequered flag.

"I carried on, brought it home in P3, and it's two podiums for Mercedes. It's great," he beamed.

The result means that Mercedes have clawed back 22 point son Ferrari in the constructors championship but remain a long way back in third.

Russell himself remains ahead of his team mate Lewis Hamilton in the drivers standings. He's currently in fifth place, 16 points ahead of the seven-time world champion and just a single point behind Sainz.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.