George Russell Characterizes Las Vegas Grand Prix Victory as a “Dream Weekend”

George Russell, who also secured a victory at the Austrian Grand Prix earlier in the year, characterized his win at the Las Vegas Grand Prix as “a dream of a weekend”. Russell secured a commanding victory starting from pole position, finishing ahead of his Mercedes team-mate, fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton, who advanced from 10th on the grid. Mercedes demonstrated superior speed throughout all sessions of the weekend, performing effectively in the cooler temperatures of the Las Vegas night race, which commenced at 22:00 local time. Russell commented, “I don’t know how we’ve been so quick but I’m just riding this wave right now.” He further added, “Vegas is just a crazy place and when you’re driving and you see all of this in the background, I can’t describe this place. To get victory here, pole position and a dominant weekend, one-two with Lewis as well, we couldn’t have chosen a better place to make this happen.” This marked Mercedes’ fourth win of the current season, despite what has been an inconsistent year for the team. They are projected to conclude the constructors’ championship in fourth place, a decline from their third-place finish in 2022 and second-place finish in 2023. Russell expressed optimism for a strong performance at the upcoming Qatar Grand Prix, which is the penultimate race of the season. He stated, “I think we’ve got a good shot in Qatar.” Russell further elaborated, “Going into this triple-header, I had my sights set on Qatar even to the point where I wanted to take my previous engine out and put an old engine in and save my best engine for Qatar.” Seven-time world champion Hamilton appeared poised to secure pole position during qualifying but committed errors in the final session, resulting in a start from the fifth row. He subsequently advanced through the field, overtaking world champion Max Verstappen to claim second place, and then reduced the distance to Russell in the final laps. Hamilton had previously expressed that he “didn’t really want to come back” after a disappointing race in Brazil three weeks prior, yet in Las Vegas, he seemed capable of potentially catching Russell and contending for the victory. Hamilton remarked, “If I’d done my job yesterday it would have been a breeze today.” He continued, “If the car drives like that in the next couple of races then I think we’ll be in a good spot to challenge the guys up front. The championship’s done, so now it’s just all out, fight for the best positions possible.” Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal, commented, “Today we really crushed everyone, we could have gone easily faster, at times we were two seconds quicker than everyone else.” Wolff added, “We seem to be very good when it’s high speed and on a bit of the chillier side with less grip and that’s something we can be proud about. But when it’s getting hot that is when the car is not performing so well.”