George Russell was left to describe his experiences of the Miami International Autodrome as \u201ca real struggle\u201d after another low-key display during Qualifying for the Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Russell<\/a> is lacking pace relative to Mercedes<\/a> team mate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli<\/a> at the Florida venue this weekend, having lapped some four-tenths slower than the Italian teenager in both grid-deciding sessions.<\/p>\n While Antonelli will start Sunday\u2019s race on pole position, adding to his P1 grid slot for the Miami Sprint last year, Russell is set to line up fifth \u2013 Red Bull<\/a>\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a>, Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s Charles Leclerc<\/a> and McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> sitting between them.<\/p>\n Russell had looked set to improve on his final Q3 lap and potentially join Antonelli on the front row of the grid, only to lose out in the final sector and finish a few hundredths behind Norris and Leclerc.<\/p>\n Asked if fifth was the maximum he could achieve in Qualifying, Russell replied: \u201cIt\u2019s never the most you can do. I think P3 was on the cards.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a track that I\u2019ve always struggled with. Last year Kimi was pole [for the Sprint] and I was P5, today he\u2019s pole and I\u2019m P5.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not really a major cause for concern, it\u2019s just I know this is a real struggle for me \u2013 low grip, really hot temperatures.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell managed to cut Antonelli\u2019s championship lead from nine points to seven in the Sprint race earlier on Saturday, with his team mate suffering a slow start and being penalised for exceeding track limits.<\/p>\n Put to him that a more competitive Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren could aid his cause on Sunday, by taking the fight to Antonelli, Russell said: \u201cPotentially, but I don\u2019t really know, to be honest. Tomorrow, who knows what the weather will bring. It\u2019ll be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell was left to describe his experiences of the Miami International Autodrome as \u201ca real struggle\u201d after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-256425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}