Russell urges F1 car rethink after COTA bumps leave him sixth on grid

George Russell is pushing for a fundamental rethink of how Formula 1 cars are set up after a troubled qualifying session at the Circuit of the Americas left him sixth on the grid for the United States Grand Prix. Team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who leads the drivers’ championship, claimed pole, leaving Russell 0.441 seconds adrift and facing a recovery drive on Sunday.

Russell’s frustration extended beyond his own Saturday. He backed Max Verstappen’s earlier complaints about COTA’s bumps — the Red Bull driver had called them “unacceptable” and “out of control” on Thursday — but argued the cars themselves are equally part of the problem.

“It is definitely pretty bad,” Russell said of the track surface. “But it’s always a challenge when you’re forced to run the car so low and so stiff. If we can get it on the tracks, then maybe we need to think about how they allow us to run the cars in a more sensible region.”

On Thursday, Russell had already called for F1 circuits to be resurfaced “every couple of years”, noting that cars run just 10mm from the ground at the end of the straight. COTA chairman Bobby Epstein acknowledged the dip at Turn 1 is “not acceptable in my mind” but told ESPN there is “no easy fix”. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who qualified seventh, likened the sensation to “a motocross jump”.

Russell’s own qualifying unravelled in Q3 after a single error cascaded through the lap. “It was just one slide around Turn 12 and then it was just a snowball. Lost it all in sector three,” he said. “Two bad laps in Q3. Simple as that.”

Changing conditions complicated matters further. Lando Norris cited the wind as the worst he had experienced at the venue, while Russell pointed to cloud cover as an additional variable. “The track temperature raises by a couple of degrees and when you get to sector three, that has a huge difference to the tyres,” he explained.

Starting sixth leaves Russell with significant ground to make up. Antonelli, meanwhile, arrives at Sunday’s race with the opportunity to seal the drivers’ championship.