Team principal Ayao Komatsu is delighted by the turnaround Haas has made since the season-opening race in Australia, after his team moved up to fifth in the constructors’ championship after four rounds.

Haas discovered a significant weakness with its car in Melbourne, as it struggled with porpoising — or bouncing — in high-speed corners due to the design of its 2025 floor. Although the smoother surface in China allowed for a far more competitive weekend, with both drivers scoring points, a quick fix was introduced in Japan that enabled the team to score a point at another high-speed circuit, before adding another double-points result in Bahrain.

“Of course I can’t [believe it],” Komatsu (pictured at left, above, with Esteban Ocon) told SiriusXM. “It’s Formula 1 so a lot changes in a very short space of time — we all know that. That’s why in Melbourne, every day trackside [personnel] were talking to the guys in Italy and the guys in the UK, working together, trying to find a solution and come up with a strategy to understand how we were going to attack the next few races.

“And then Shanghai, Suzuka, Bahrain, you see the result of that. We are far from perfect, of course, but what really gives me great pleasure is this team, and how we grew up together. We believe together and we support each other.

“There is none of this blame culture or finger-pointing or hiding away. We all accepted that, ‘We’ve got a big issue here, we’ve got to tackle it head-on, what’s the best way to go about it?’ and we were just working together. Also the two drivers, Esteban [Ocon] and Ollie [Bearman], they have been absolutely at the center of it. That’s what we needed, that’s what I was looking for, and that’s what we’re doing.

“So honestly, I cannot complain. I’m so proud of this team. Everyone.”

Despite the run of points since Australia, Komatsu says the bouncing is still a problem the team has to deal with, and he’s wary of it rearing its head again if the team doesn’t get the setup right at certain tracks.

“Of course we will do our best in Jeddah but I think we have to take it one race at a time, because I’m not kidding and saying we’ve solved the fundamental issue of the car — we’ve still got it,” he admitted. “Even [in Bahrain] we have it, but nowhere near to such a severe extent as in Melbourne. Partly because of the track, partly because we improved the car, but we are not completely out of it.

“So honestly, I have to be grounded. Every single race we have to go into with an open mind and then try to get the best car setup, the best program, and get the best out of the driving.”

George Russell admits the Bahrain Grand Prix result bodes well for Mercedes having a competitive Formula 1 season, but he still believes he’s an outsider in the drivers’ championship.

Mercedes has struggled in hot conditions in recent seasons, with smooth track surfaces and cooler temperatures providing its most competitive opportunities. However, after securing a season’s-best second place in Bahrain — his third podium in four races — Russell says it’s a particularly important result as it shows the progress with the car’s performance.

“[It gives] a lot of confidence,” Russell said. “This was the real sort of test for us. We knew that our car likes the cold conditions, and the competitiveness we showed in China and Suzuka was no major surprise. But this was going to be the question mark and we’ve had another strong weekend. So it bodes well for the season.”

Despite the positive signs, Russell believes the pace difference with McLaren is still too big at present to count himself as a true title contender, despite only being 14 points adrift of championship leader Lando Norris.

“I’d love to say so, but I don’t think we are, to be honest. McLaren are just too dominant right now,” he admitted. “I think this is probably going to be their peak performance, what we saw this week in Bahrain. What we saw in China and Suzuka was probably their worst-case scenario and they still obviously got one victory from those two races.

“So we’ve got to keep on picking up the points, picking up the pieces. And this weekend we picked up the pieces to get a P2 – and we did it in Melbourne as well to get the P3. I don’t expect this to continue for many races to come, but who knows?”

Team principal Toto Wolff echoes Russell’s encouragement due to the Bahrain result — one he called an “unbelievable” drive from the Briton — and is slightly more optimistic that McLaren could be caught.

“We would have expected that Bahrain would have been one of the very difficult forums for us because of the warm ambient and the very granular, rough circuit,” Wolff said. “In the end, we qualified P2 and P4. We had a car that was able to be solid on the podium, and that is better than we expected.

“So, you can call a race a success if you win, but in the circumstances, one could say it was much better than we expected.

“If you look at where McLaren was last year, I think they were fourth and sixth or fifth and sixth, something like this. You can see how quickly you can turn the tide. Probably [on Sunday] we were a few tenths missing. Don’t know how we would have performed on the medium at the end.

“But definitely we just need to put on our best game and see how it goes on the other tracks.”

Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to [email protected]. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week. 

Q: A 17-race IndyCar schedule is way too short, which in my opinion is the reason for the dip in viewership. They need to stop make these excuses that the Masters and NCAA Tournament is going to hurt viewership. It is what it is, the series is in competition with the United Football League, Major League Soccer, the NBA, and the NHL. Just expanded to 22 races by adding Homestead, New Orleans, and Richmond and keep Thermal. Having races every weekend will add more viewers for the series. Having these three week breaks in the schedule hurts the series.

Alistair, Springfield, MO

MARSHALL PRUETT: I don’t see the citing of The Masters or other big rival events as excuses. If an independent film debuts on the same weekend as a new Star Wars movie, there’s a 100-percent chance it gets overlooked and its ticket sales will suffer. Why wouldn’t the same effect happen here?
Without competition, IndyCar tends to generate solid TV audiences. Pitted against sports that are more popular? IndyCar falls to second or third on the list, if not fourth or fifth.

Its audience size reflects its current ranking among major sports, which is a mile behind anything involving a bat, ball, or club, and at least a half-mile behind NASCAR and F1. To quote Juan Pablo Montoya, “It is what it is.” I’ve lived in times where the opposite was true and IndyCar was the big dog, and I’m among the many who pray for its return to that exalted place.

I love the idea of more races being the answer to bigger TV audiences, if those extra events fall on weekends where IndyCar has the broadcast window to itself. But if it’s got big competition from one or two sports that have more fans, logic says those folks will go to what they prefer before checking out IndyCar.

More of something doesn’t automatically equate to greater popularity. MLB teams play 162 games per year, and most struggle to fill two-thirds of their stadiums and record TV ratings that suck.

Here’s what Sunday’s FOX audience of 552,000 viewers tells us: All of IndyCar’s diehards tuned in on big FOX, and that’s about it. Last year, buried on NBC’s USA cable channel, Long Beach produced 307,348, which was dismal. In the switch from a cable channel that nobody associated as the place to watch IndyCar, to a giant network home in a featured slot, Long Beach went from 300k to 550k. It’s nearly double, so that’s obviously a good thing, but it’s still a tiny number. Especially for the race that’s rightly hailed as the second-biggest on the IndyCar calendar after the Indy 500.

Despite the competition from golf on CBS, I would have expected IndyCar on FOX at Long Beach to attract more than 550k. It’s disappointing, at least to me, and also acts as a reminder that no matter how much we love IndyCar, a massive effort lies ahead for the series and for FOX to bring it out of the shadows. This is an unwelcome reality check, but it is indeed what it is.

Q: I just read the news item saying that Hy-Vee will no longer sponsor the Iowa doubleheader. Do you know why Hy-Vee pulled out? It went from sponsoring a car and the doubleheader to getting out of IndyCar completely. Do you think this is a harbinger of rough times for IndyCar and teams finding sponsors?

Peter, Indianapolis

MP: This change happened last year, so I wouldn’t take the news of Sukup (Sue-cup) Manufacturing being signed just now as a sign of anything meaningful in April of 2025. Hy-Vee underwent a CEO change, with Randy Edeker, a huge IndyCar fan who drove the deals with RLL and the series at Iowa, stepping down. A failure to renew the contracts after their completion in 2024 was not a surprise, since CEO changes often result in sponsorships going away.

Q: The talk about tariffs made me remember Swift. Back when IndyCar was choosing a new car, Swift was making Formula Nippon cars (now known as Super Formula). What are they doing nowadays?

That car was nice, it raced well and sounded great. I remember Swift’s IndyCar project was beautiful. I always wondered why Japan had an American company making its cars, but IndyCar couldn’t go with Swift to make theirs.

Also now with this talk in F1 about the V10 (which looks like will result in a V8), maybe IndyCar could switch to a V8. Ask Honda and Toyota if they still have those engines around. They sounded better than the IndyCar V8 from those years.

This seems like a very complicated moment to decide engine rules, isn’t it? So much uncertainty.

William Mazeo

MP: Made in San Clemente, CA. I grew up working Swift’s NorCal distributor and built/prepped/ran countless Swifts. Of all the marques, it’s the closest to my heart, and I’d rate the longtail Swift DB-1 as one of the most beautiful racecars made.

V10s would be a play for entertainment alone since there’s zero road-car relevance at the point in time. Same with V8s as a mandated formula. But if a series lacks auto manufacturers, there’s no reason not to go with something loud, screaming, and entertaining. I feel for Penske Entertainment on this front. We know hybridization is genuinely important to a lot of manufacturers today. But will it hold the same importance in three to five years?

Q: Not surprisingly, push-to-pass was often talked about during the Long Beach broadcast. I swear the FOX guys never even mentioned the hybrid. Is the stored electric energy not self-deployed on demand to assist with overtaking and defense?

Shawn, MD

MP: The energy recovery system can harvest automatically, if that option is enabled prior to whatever session, but is not allowed to deploy automatically. That’s the sole responsibility of each driver.

And yes, if I’m an auto manufacturer in IndyCar and compete with hybrid engines to showcase or promote hybrid road-car technology, I’m livid.
I rewatched the race Monday night and don’t recall a single mention of the ERS being available as a push-to-pass tool. Heard tons about the turbo P2P and who had however much time left to use, but it’s as if the other, newer P2P is invisible. I did note, however, that in the Acura commercial I saw during the race, it used its hybrid IMSA GTP car in the ad.

Lando Norris says he doesn’t understand how he’s still leading the drivers’ championship after struggling so much with his McLaren, but is confident he will perform at his best again once he finds solutions.

Oscar Piastri’s victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix closed him to within three points of Norris at the top of the standings, with Max Verstappen slipping back to third place overall and eight points off the lead. Norris finished third on Sunday behind Piastri and George Russell, and said he doesn’t take the positives out of his championship position as he focuses on trying to get comfortable within the MCL39.

“That’s not how I think,” Norris said of retaining his lead. “It probably should be how I think, but it’s not how I think. To finish third, to get some more points on the board, to keep the championship and just my race alive was a good thing, but I’m not happy about the result.

“Third’s not horrendous. I think the best I could have done is second. I just made my life too difficult with too many mistakes with the start, with the [Lewis] Hamilton thing. So, I’m surprised. Everyone says I’m leading the championship, I don’t know how at the minute! So I’m pretty surprised.

“I just need to keep my head down and keep working hard because I’m not confident, I’m not comfortable, and I know what I can do. I know what I can achieve. It’s not gone, I’ve not lost it. It’s just things aren’t clicking and I need to somehow look into why they’re not clicking, but it’s not proving to be too easy.”

Norris says he has a few different avenues to explore this weekend in Saudi Arabia when it comes to his qualifying pace, believing that is where the root of his problems are to be found.

“I think my race pace is fine. My race pace is good. It’s clearly a bit more my qualifying. I went through a lot [on Saturday] night. I left late. I spent a lot of time trying to look into what happened, why I struggled so much, why I’m not feeling confident.

“I guess we kind of narrowed down to a few things, not maybe clear answers and definitive answers, but a few reasons of why maybe I’ve been struggling a bit more here and there with my qualifyings and the pace and stuff.

“But I know what I’m capable of doing. I know I can go out and get poles and I can win races by good margins. But something’s not just doing what it should, and I don’t know what that is. I need to get back home and get working with my team and see what we can uncover.”

A Saudi Arabian-owned team could soon be on the cards based on the growth shown by Formula 1, according to the chairman of the country’s motorsports federation.

Saudi influence in F1 has increased markedly in recent years, with the grand prix in Jeddah joining the calendar in 2021, and a new track at Qiddiya currently under constructions. Aramco is also a global partner of F1 alongside being the title partner of Aston Martin, where there is an ownership stake currently up for sale as Aston Martin Lagonda looks to offload its shareholding.

Given the fact that most recent Concorde Agreement allows for 12 teams, and Cadillac’s entry in 2026 will take the number up to 11, then there is a slot on the grid for a new team, or for a takeover of an existing constructor.

“I mean, it could happen,” Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal said. “It could happen soon if you see the growth, first of all. If you’re going to buy a Formula 1 team, then people will buy it to make money out of it, especially if it’s going to be bought by one of the PIF (Public Investment Fund) companies.

“So we see there is a lot of [growth], now Formula 1 is reaching new markets, the sales are globally increasing. We saw the partnership with Aramco and Aston Martin. So, all directions say that maybe soon Saudi can, if they see if it’s feasible, if it makes sense, then why not?

“Nobody dislikes making money, so if you can make money out of Formula 1, but I think it’s very tricky. You need to know exactly which team to buy and who to partner with and who will manage this.

“It’s very difficult because you see Formula 1 became very competitive and there’s a lot of changes in the regulations. We saw [the change that] is going to come in 2026 and the talks about Formula 1 going back to the V10 engines – naturally-aspirated engines – so the decision is very difficult.

“It’s not easy to say which team to buy and how you’re going to manage it. But we have a lot of interest. They’re sponsoring, we’re hosting a Formula 1 race, we’re sponsoring teams, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an announcement for a Saudi team.

“And personally, I would like to see a Saudi team, but if Saudi Arabia, or one of the Saudi companies will be involved in one of the teams, I would like them to do it the right way and be successful. So it’s a tricky question, but why not?”

Prince Khalid would also like to see the future Qiddiya circuit be an additional race alongside the existing event in Jeddah if possible, but says no discussions have been held with F1 on that front, with the original plan to move the Saudi Arabian race to the new venue outside Riyadh.

“Saudi Arabia as a country, we would like to host two races. Jeddah and Riyadh, they are two different regions and two different markets. And Saudi Arabia, it’s a very big market. But is it feasible? And can we do two races given the complicated calendar?

“We know that we have a market for it in Saudi Arabia, but it’s something that we haven’t thought about. Let’s see what the demand will be when we move to Riyadh and maybe discuss it once we move to Riyadh and see if we can still maintain to have two races, which I really doubt that… All the teams, everybody’s complaining about [the number of races], and we have already four races in the Middle East.

“But, personally, I would like to see two races in Saudi. We know that the United States have three races after Las Vegas was introduced. Saudi Arabia is a very big country. I mean, it can happen, but will it happen? It’s too early to discuss this now.”

Helmut Marko says there are serious concerns that Max Verstappen could leave Red Bull at the end of the season if the team does not improve its performance.

Verstappen finished sixth at the Bahrain Grand Prix after overtaking Pierre Gasly on the final lap of the race, but was over half a minute behind race-winner Oscar Piastri despite a safety car neutralizing the race with just 24 laps to go. After Verstappen struggled so heavily with tire degradation, balance issues and braking problems, Marko admitted solutions need to be found quickly.

“The concern is great,” Marko told Sky Germany of the fear that Verstappen could leave at the end of the season. “As I said, improvements have to come in the near future so that he has a car with which he can win again. We have to create a basis with a car so that he can fight for the world championship.”

Verstappen’s chances of a better result were also hampered by two slow pit stops – one for a signaling issue and another due to a slow tire change – and he says it simply compounded a tough evening for him.

“The pace was very bad, but of course I didn’t expect the race that I had, because basically everything went wrong that could go wrong,” Verstappen said. “That probably made it a little bit worse. But I think the position where I finished is, at the end of the day, the maximum that we could have done.

“The brakes are a little bit better because we were allowed to change the material, but the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tires are just overheating, so when I’m braking there is no feeling, because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”

Having won in Japan a week earlier, Verstappen said the track layout and surface in Bahrain exposed Red Bull’s weaknesses even more.

“Lacking balance [is the cause], and it’s highlighted even more on this track. When you have no balance and no tire management, or worse tire management than the others, then on this track it’s worse.

“I just feel like we are even worse on tires somehow this year. It makes it just very complicated. Because last year we were not too bad around here. Of course then people made improvements, but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend than last year. So it’s a bit weird.”

Lewis Hamilton believes the Bahrain Grand Prix was the weekend he learned the most with Ferrari so far, and he found himself aligned with how the car wanted to be driven.

Ferrari had a solid outing in Bahrain to secure fourth place courtesy of Charles Leclerc, with Hamilton one place further back. While Hamilton was further back in the field in the opening stages, he said the way he learned how to get more performance out of his car as the race unfolded was a particularly encouraging sign.

“Much more positive,” Hamilton said. “The middle stint was really… I felt really aligned with the car, I felt the balance finally was in a spot and my driving style seemed to be working in that moment, and so I learned a lot from today – and this weekend actually, a lot. Probably more than all the other weekends.”

Hamilton admitted it has been a significant challenge to find a way to get the best out of a new car with different hardware following 12 years at Mercedes.

“It just feels so alien, and sometimes I think we all get stuck in our ways. I’ve been very stuck, thinking I need to keep driving the way I’ve been driving, just make the car come to me, but it’s not working. So I’m adjusting myself now to the car.

“Also just the little tools that they use, it just drives so much different. With all the ECU controls that we have that we use, it’s a lot different to what I was used to.

“One example is that I never used engine braking before. For the past 12 years, I’ve never used engine braking. This year we use a lot of engine braking, to turn the car.

“The brakes are so much different to what I had in the past. They move around a little bit more. Like in the last stint, I had to use the rears to turn the car, and other times you have to put more weight on the front. So it’s probably a bigger balance window than I was used to as well.”

And Hamilton says he’s also learning from teammate Leclerc, having seen that he tends to stick to a specific setup direction through a race weekend.

“The key is to try and get back to it every weekend, as clear as that. The car really does require a different driving style and I think I’m slowly adjusting to that.

“Also setup, I’ve been a bit all over the place, a long way from Charles the past two weekends, and then slowly migrating towards him, so I think if I start the weekend with a more convenient spot and apply the techniques that I learnt this weekend, hopefully it will improve.”

Only two races ago, I was writing about what a big milestone it was for Oscar Piastri to finally have the first pole position of his Formula 1 career, and how it was well-timed to pull him quickly back into range of teammate Lando Norris after he won in China.

It’s a sign of Piastri’s progression that by the time he took the second pole position of his career — just two races after the first — it already felt like a normal occurrence.

While much of the focus has been on the pressure that Norris is facing, and at times struggling with, there was certainty a degree of pressure on Piastri’s shoulders coming into this season, too. He should take it as a compliment, but the Australian was expected to provide a stern challenge to Norris and step up a level from the 2024 performances that were themselves a clear display of progression on his debut year. With the expectation came the additional pressure.

Piastri continued to develop rapidly. Last year’s qualifying head-to-head against Norris was 20-4 in the more experienced driver’s favor, whereas this time around it is already 2-2, and on the two occasions Piastri has been beaten it has been by an average of 0.058s.

In Bahrain, Piastri put over 0.4s into his teammate over one lap in qualifying, and that set up his relatively serene run to victory on Sunday, becoming the first repeat winner of the 2025 season in the process.

“I’ve been happy with how I’ve driven all season so far,” Piastri said. “Maybe not all the results have been exactly what I wanted, but I think this weekend has definitely been the result I wanted. I’ve been proud of the job that I’ve been doing and very proud of the job the team’s done.

“Obviously the car is in a great place. Still has its moments where it bites, but for a lot of the time it’s an incredible car to drive and clearly very quick. I’m very proud of the work we’re doing. This has been a track that’s not been kind to us in the past, so to have a weekend like we have had this weekend is a really meaningful result – outside of the victory.”

For McLaren it was a particularly important victory, not only because of the struggles the team has had around Bahrain in recent years — partly caused by a trend of starting the season slowly and updating the car later on — but also because of its Bahraini ownership.

On his 50th grand prix start, Piastri delivered the result when there were a significant number of guests and senior personnel on-site, and when he will have been fully aware of how much Zak Brown and Co. wanted the win. But handling external pressure is something that team principal Andrea Stella has noted is a strength of the 24-year-old.

“I am impressed, but not surprised,” Stella said prior to Piastri’s victory. “I’m not surprised because, for us, like I always repeat, it was very apparent pretty much straight away that we were dealing with a driver with incredible natural talent, but associated also to some particular characteristics I would say.

“I’ve always said that there’s no noise in Oscar’s head, which is a very useful characteristic in Formula 1, and I think this allows him to progress, to process information, to process what’s available in the situations as a way of improving himself at a very fast rate.

“For being race 50 in Formula 1, certainly what he’s achieving is pretty remarkable, but what I can say is that considering his qualities, and considering the way he approaches race weekend and his Formula 1 experience, I think he will be able to sustain this growth and this trajectory for the years to come. It’s a very interesting prospect for the entirety of Formula 1 I would say.”

Fifty races sounds like a big milestone, but in modern day F1 that’s a little over two seasons, and should serve as a reminder of how rapid Piastri’s rise has been since McLaren grabbed him from Alpine in the summer of 2022. In that time he has shown not only impressive development but also already delivered significant performances, that make the drive in Bahrain a strong one but not necessarily his finest.

“If you think of the victory in Baku [last year], for instance, it was a pretty crystalline, clinical victory, that one with [Charles] Leclerc attacking him every single lap,” Stella continued. “For me, this one is the one in which he’s been just the most robust. No hesitations, no inaccuracies. Everything that was available, he capitalized on. This gives me more the sense of robustness, solid racing.

“I think the Baku one was more on the edge. It was more pressure. This one was more managing gaps, if anything. But obviously, being strong at the start, restarts, it shouldn’t be taken for granted for somebody who is in their 50th race in Formula 1, which is quite impressive.”

But that’s exactly the compliment Piastri is earning already — that it is taken for granted because it is becoming more surprising if he is not able to put himself in a position to maximize a race weekend.

The robustness that Stella talks about is not only a strength of Piastri’s, but it contrasts with what appeared to be a fragility within his teammate in Bahrain. Norris could not put together a clean performance in qualifying or the race and saw Piastri cut his advantage in the drivers’ championship to just three points.

Piastri did it in typical, understated fashion, but it was the ideal display to let Norris know just what a battle he has on his hands this year.

George Russell avoided a penalty for opening his DRS when not within range of another car during the Bahrain Grand Prix, cementing his second-place finish.

The stewards investigated after Russell opened his DRS on the back straight while trying to respond to a number of technical issues in his Mercedes, including a problem with a timing loop that saw his car not registering its position on track through the mini sectors. Russell stated he gained no time when the DRS opened accidentally as he was trying to manually check different systems, and while the stewards found that the use of the DRS was an infringement, they applied no penalty as they agreed he handed back any sporting advantage.

“The connection between the automated DRS activation system and the car failed due to issues with a timing loop provided by an external party,” the stewards’ decision read. “Therefore the FIA authorized manual activation of the DRS in accordance with Article 22.1 h).

“At the time the driver was experiencing a brake-by-wire issue and other electronic issues. He was at that time advised to use an auxiliary button in the cockpit which serves as a back up radio button but also serves as a manual DRS activation button.

“On the straight between Turns 10 and 11 he tried to radio the team using this button but instead accidentally activated the DRS. The DRS was activated for a distance of 37 meters on a straight of approximately 700 meters. Whilst he gained 0.02s, he gave up 0.28s at the next corner to compensate. This was confirmed by telemetry.

“Accordingly, whilst technically a breach occurred, the stewards decide that, as there was no sporting advantage gained, no penalty is imposed.”

By avoiding a penalty, Russell is confirmed in second place in the race results ahead of Lando Norris, having held the McLaren driver off in the closing laps. The finishing order leaves Russell six points behind third-placed Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship, and 14 points adrift of leader Norris.

George Russell insists he gained no time accidentally opening his DRS amid a number of car issues on his way to second place in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Soon after a safety car period in the second half of the race, Russell disappeared from the timing screens as his transponder stopped working, despite still running in second place. That was the first sign of multiple problems that were to follow, with the lack of GPS data meaning he could not judge his DRS gap to other cars, nor could they to him.

Russell was told of an override he would need to do by Mercedes in order to use DRS, but he faces an investigation for his rear wing flap opening when he wasn’t within a second of a car in front, a moment he says he responded to at the time.

“It was exceptionally difficult towards the end,” Russell said. “I had all sorts of problems with the car, the steering wheel, I was losing all my data, and the brake pedal went into failure mode, so I had to do all these resets and one minute the brakes were working properly, the next they weren’t. I was pretty pleased when I saw the checkered flag, to be honest.

“I don’t really know how that happened [with the DRS]. It was something to do with all these failures that we were having. As soon as I saw it opened, I backed off. I lost 0.2s and it never happened again throughout.

“So I didn’t actually click the DRS button. I clicked another button and it opened. And as I said, I lost a lot more [and] I don’t think I even gained anything because it was open for less than a second.”

The incident is under investigation post-race and, as it had an impact on other cars around him, any potential penalty remains unclear, but for now Russell is classified in second place and says holding off Lando Norris in the closing stages makes it one of his most satisfying results.

“Yeah, I mean I’ve not actually had that many P2s, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve had a few P3s, but we did not expect to be anywhere close to McLaren this weekend. Qualifying on the front row was a real surprise, and then seeing Lando right up there on lap one behind me, I thought, ‘He’s going to fly off into the distance here.’ Oscar [Piastri] did an amazing job to control the race, but to keep Lando at bay, I was really pleased about.”