Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton's late stand-in George Russell ended his first day atop the timesheets with the fastest time for Mercedes in Friday practice for the Sakhir Grand Prix.
The 22-year-old, put into Hamilton’s seat after his fellow Briton tested positive for Covid-19, could not have asked for a better start to his debut with the world champions after lapping fastest in both of the day’s two sessions.
Russell headed Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in both.
He also finished ahead of team mate Valtteri Bottas, who was nursing damage to his Mercedes in the opening 90 minutes and had a lap time, which would have been faster than Russell’s best, deleted for exceeding track limits in the second session.
The Finn ended the two sessions fourth and 11th, respectively.
“I’ve found it good,” Russell, whose 54.546 seconds benchmark from the opening session stood as the fastest time of the day, told Formula One TV.
“I’m working with the best in the business and I’m learning so much every single lap I’m in the car.
“I do think the lap times are a little bit deceiving at the moment and aren’t a true representation of the pace,” he said, adding he would have been a tenth-and-a-half slower than Bottas had the Finn’s lap time not been deleted.
This weekend is being seen as something of a shootout between Russell and Bottas for a 2022 seat at Mercedes.
The world champions have denied that is the case.
But Russell, who is a Mercedes-backed driver and has been placed at engine customer Williams to learn the ropes, has done his chances of one day driving for the German marque’s works team no harm with his performance so far.
Published 05 December 2020, 02:42 IST