Mercedes driver George Russell admitted that he was kicking himself after he felt that a mistake during the Monaco Grand Prix had cost him a potential podium position in today's rain-hit race.
Russell had been on the backfoot this weekend as he got to grips with the new upgrade package on the W14. He battled through qualifying on Saturday to reach the final round but was only P8 on the grid.
He opted to start the race on hard tyres and run a long first stint, but had a scare when he was placed under investigation for being out of position on the grid, but stewards decided not to apply a penalty.
When those drivers ahead of him who had started the race on medium tyres pitted, Russell gradually moved up the order. He was up to third when the rain started to fall, allowing him to move direct to intermediates for his second stint.
Russell felt that he had been on course to finish on the podium after a slow pit stop for Alpine's Esteban Ocon and a spin for Carlos Sainz. But there was confusion when he found himself joining Aston Martin's Lance Stroll in the escape road at Mirabeau.
"After the pit stop, I was ahead of Lewis and Esteban and I made a mistake, completely by myself," he explained. What's even worse is that I wasn't even pushing.
"I'm really kicking myself because P3 was almost guaranteed," Russell told the media in the paddock afterwards. "There was a yellow flag, I backed off and as soon as I touched the brakes I locked up and followed Stroll up the escape road.
"One third of the track was extremely wet, another part was quite dry. If you touch the white line when it's wet, it's like ice. But ultimately, it's the same conditions for everyone.
"Probably if there wasn't a yellow flag there, I would have just been focusing more," he suggested. "That's probably a lesson that actually when you're not on it and you're not focused, you make those mistakes.
"I wouldn't have gone off and cost the team a comfortable P3," he added. "It's bitterly disappointing when you do everything right for 98 per cent of [the race] but that one tiny mistake costs everything."
When he attempted to rejoin the track he swept across the front of Sergio Perez, resulting in contact with the Red Bull and a five second penalty for an unsafe return.
Russell said that the contact with Perez had affected his car for the rest of the race. "I definitely damaged the car a bit. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to continue, but it kind of sorted itself out as the laps progress.
"I think the toes got bent at the rear end," he mused. "I felt really uncomfortable in the car. But we were the quickest on track during that period, so I don't really know what was going on."
After that Russell found himself stuck in traffic, including his team mate Lewis Hamilton while coming under pressure from Ferrari's Charles Leclerc - which could have given him an excuse to appeal for team orders to pass Hamilton.
"I was definitely not going to risk anything on Lewis in conditions like this," he acknowledged. "But with that five-second penalty it could have been a good buffer if Charles had caught it up.
"I said to the team, no obligation and no pressure from my side," he said. "It was not needed in the end. And then as soon as I knew we were safe to Charles, I just brought it home."
"George shouldn't be too hard on himself," said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. "He drove a nice first stint to have the opportunity to capitalise on the rain.
"The conditions were just so tricky to drive that a small mistake cost him quite dear but this was an afternoon where the team worked well, and our drivers showed their quality too, and that shows in the points scored."
Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added: "With George, who was in a similar race with one Ferrari and one Alpine, we decided against the undercut and were waiting for rain, a safety car, or a red flag.
"That came, but the transition was tricky. Only half the track was wet, but where it was, it was really damp. We seemed to make the switch at the correct time, but George got caught out with a lock-up during the warm-up phase.
"Luckily he continued, but our chance of a podium had evaporated. He did a good job to build enough of a gap to the Ferrari of Leclerc that his penalty didn't affect his position when it was added after the race."
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