F1 | Williams, George Russell admits: "Not an easy race"

Williams leaves Turkey with zero points under her belt. George Russell and Nicholas Latifi had already failed to take advantage of the track conditions during qualifying, where the Englishman only managed to get into thirteenth position, while Latifi stopped in Q1. The rain that fell during the night and morning on Istanbul Park forced everyone to take to the track with intermediate tyres: choosing when and whether to stop was the question of the day, and the same for the engineers at the Williams pit wall. Unfortunately Russell wasn't able to find the right rhythm, as he explained post-race.

"It was definitely not an easy race – admitted the Englishman – the first ten laps went well, but as soon as the intermediates started to wear out on the dry line everything became incredibly difficult. The conditions were unique even though the line seemed to be drying out, but the cloud cover and low temperatures meant we couldn't fit the slicks. We certainly learned something today, even if we didn't have the pace we had hoped for, I think it was very difficult for everyone".

Latifi, however, does not help his campaign with a spin on the opening lap: the Canadian thus loses several seconds, and remains constantly at the back for the entire race.

"My race ended when I spun on the opening lap and from then on I was too far behind to catch up to those in front. I also lost a lot of time trying to overtake the two Haas cars of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin – explained Nicholas – in any case, it was my first full Grand Prix in the rain and it was a great experience. Obviously, it's not the result we expected, but at times our pace was good. I tried to make up for lost time, but in conditions like that you have to be very careful about how you push. It's part of learning, so there are positives today, but it's frustrating because you're always hoping for a good outcome.".