How “reset” Russell fended off “recalibrated” Hamilton for Barcelona GP pole

Sometimes stepping away for a reset does you good. In the scant handful of days between a disastrous Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix weekend and the commute to Barcelona, George Russell had great cause for self-examination, having slipped behind Lewis Hamilton to third in the drivers’ championship.

Hamilton himself knows all about resets, having endured a torrid time with Mercedes and then Ferrari during the ground-effect era, a period where he often had cause to doubt himself. And here in Barcelona, he performed another turnaround, sequestering himself in his motorhome on Saturday between a disappointing FP3 and qualifying, emerging refreshed and ready to run Russell ragged for pole position, falling short by a margin of just 0.064s.

That’s only slightly greater than the gap between the front-row starters last weekend in the principality, where Russell’s team-mate Kimi Antonelli edged out Max Verstappen by 0.043s – less than the blink of an eye.

Barcelona is so familiar to the teams and drivers that this was a natural choice for those wishing to ‘spend’ one of the mandatory occasions – two per car per year – where a rookie takes over for FP1. You would reasonably expect this to carry no disadvantage, but Hamilton said he felt “a huge offset” after missing this session while Ferrari protege Dino Beganovic drove his SF-26.

In FP2, Hamilton’s fastest lap was 1.205s off the benchmark set by McLaren’s Lando Norris (by 0.009s from Russell), and nearly eight tenths off Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc. In FP3, he was 0.702s away Russell and half a second slower than the other Ferrari; hardly cause to expect a tight battle for pole position.

“I really surprised myself,” said Hamilton after qualifying. “I really wasn't expecting to be fighting for the front row. Normally when you miss FP1, you are a bit on the back foot, but not so bad. You can usually recover.

“This has been the hardest – FP2, for example, I was a second off. And then I said, OK, I'll come back in FP3.

“In FP3, I'm still half a second off of Charles, seven tenths off P1. So, I was like, this is not my weekend, but I stepped away from the track in between the P3 and qualifying, which I never, ever do.

“I was like, I've got to get out of here. I went back to my motorhome, came back and just recalibrated myself.”

A trip to his motorhome helped Lewis Hamilton to his best Ferrari qualifying

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

At Mercedes, it was Antonelli who in FP1 yielded his seat to a rookie – Frederik Vesti – and perhaps he too was unexpectedly discombobulated by the lack of track time, for he lagged thereafter, though there are mitigating circumstances for his seemingly dismal FP3 performance. He was baulked twice by traffic while going through a qualifying simulation when the track conditions were at their best, and had to bail out of it.

Pirelli has brought tyre compounds a step softer than last year for this weekend, and it has brought the unwelcome subject of degradation back to the top of the agenda. Even the C3 medium tyre – last year’s soft – was looking ugly after a few laps of hard use; the C4 soft was too sensitive to push to 100% throughout a single lap.

Qualifying, therefore, would be all about who could dance best on that knife-edge between asking too much of the C4 at any given point, or being too diffident and leaving time on the table. Circumstances in Q3 were complicated by Leclerc, having judged his first sector just so, trying to empty the tank too quickly in sector two and asking too much at the exit of Turn 4, catching the ensuing twitch but then spearing into the wall.

Only Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen had set times at that point and Hamilton was among those who had to bail out of push laps. The red flag led to a febrile final few minutes of qualifying as the remaining drivers had to try for a banker lap with tyres which had already been pushed, before putting on fresh softs for one final shot.

“I just had a big reset going into this weekend,” said Russell. “And every lap from the start of FP1 we've been in the top two positions, and that is what I’m most proud and happy about.

“After such a tough run of results, obviously for various different reasons, it was a big reset, and you never know how it's going to pan out. But I really felt my groove again, really felt comfortable in the car, very similar to how I felt at the start of the year.

“And then to get the results, I'm just really grateful for the team and everyone who sort of stood by me in these couple of weeks.”

Almost even through sector one

The way the track running order panned out in the final runs, Antonelli’s final lap came before Russell’s, followed by Hamilton. And for a couple of moments, it looked like Antonelli would run his team-mate close, setting personal bests through the first two sectors – only for Russell to go purple in both.

Antonelli closed out the session three tenths down on Russell and spoke of a small problem with his deployment in that final sector, later clarified by team boss Toto Wolff as a failure to press the boost button on his steering wheel at the right moment. Our telemetry suggests this was the final run out of Turn 14, where the two Mercedes had virtually identical throttle traces but a telling disparity in acceleration.

It’s much more challenging to separate Russell’s lap from Hamilton’s because the advantage shifted in small margins throughout. As befits such a tiny overall margin, it’s a matter of tiny differences in approach, coupled with variations in car performance.

The approach to Turn 1 in Barcelona is complicated by the sudden change in gradient towards the end of the straight. It can tempt drivers to carry a little too much speed into the corner, compromising the line into the left-hander at Turn 2, which follows immediately, and which in turn dictates the exit speed through to the long right-hander which follows.

Russell’s style is built on braking minimally and trying to preserve as much speed through the corner as possible, which asks a lot of the rear end – challenging here given the constant punishment the rear axle is subject to. It requires Russell to have utter confidence in the front end and its capacity to turn, something which was noticeably missing in Monaco.

Hamilton has incredible feel for the front end and the degree to which he needs to release the brakes. In our data we can see him (red trace) really attacking Turn 1, briefly carrying up to 10km/h more than the Mercedes towards the apex – but as a comparison of the on-board camera footage reveals, Russell hugged the apex kerb more closely and got a more optimal line through, resulting in a neater entry trajectory towards Turn 2.

Russell was able to take fractionally more throttle between Turns 1 and 2 while Hamilton had to work the steering harder to line his car up. Being further towards the apex kerb of Turn 2 gave a less optimal line through for Hamilton, and a small compromise in exit speed – just a handful of kilometres an hour.

But Russell then had to feather the throttle more greatly through Turn 3 – both drivers had to catch a small slide at almost the same point, just before the apex, with a rolling of the wrists on the steering wheel. Now there was almost nothing to separate them, before the Mercedes eked out a tiny gap – not much more than a car length in practical terms – before they reached the braking point for Turn 4, which demarcates the end of sector one.

There’s little in the data or the onboards to explain Russell attaining a fractionally higher peak speed on the run between Turns 3 and 4, so we’re into the noise of differing car performance.

Hamilton monsters sector two

Russell set the fastest time overall in the second sector – until Hamilton beat it moments later. Again, the difference is granular.

Both drivers backed off the throttle and braked at the same point into Turn 4, and Russell even released the brakes fractionally earlier, but Hamilton enjoyed more confidence and grip and carried more speed through the turn-in phase. Russell was able to apply the throttle more aggressively at the corner exit but by this point he was in deficit to the tune of a tenth of a second or so, making this a damage-limitation exercise.

Russell was still reclaiming some of that lost momentum at the left-handed Turn 5, where he backed out of the throttle later, but again Hamilton had the confidence and grip to carry more cornering speed despite a wider line. You can see Hamilton’s hands busy at the wheel through the exit phase, correcting microslides, and although it looks impressive quick, the data indicates that running over the kerb more decisively sapped some of his momentum here.

The Mercedes picked up a slightly higher peak speed through Turn 6 but here the drivers’ approach diverged; Hamilton lifted earlier for the sharp, uphill left-hander at Turn 7, but his braking phase was later and shorter, preserving more apex speed and giving him a slightly neater exit trajectory, taking less kerb at Turn 8. At the top of the hill, the blind-entry right-hander at Turn 9 is dismissed with a partial lift – the question is always how much and how long.

The data here indicates Russell backed off to a slightly lesser extent, but for longer, whereas Hamilton’s sharper movement of the right foot cost less momentum. That put the Ferrari a tenth or so up, slightly more than a car length as they exited the corner.

Russell pulls it back in the third sector

On a lap defined by tiny margins, the difference between Hamilton and Russell was most pronounced at Turn 10, where Russell came off the throttle and onto the brake earlier, but did so on a much straighter line before turning in. Hamilton favoured an earlier but less dramatic turn-in point, giving the two cars a very different trajectory through this fiddly hairpin; Lewis clearly wanted to let the fronts contribute to scrubbing off some of the speed, karting style, as the car rotated into the corner.

As a result, Hamilton tracked wider as the corner began to open out. Although he was earlier on the throttle, the damage had been done in terms of apex speed: Russell was around 8km/h quicker around this bothersomely slow corner, and Hamilton had to open up the steering to quell a snap of oversteer as he got back on the throttle.

On the short uphill curve between Turns 10 and 12, the Ferrari’s low-speed punch – a factor of that smaller turbo compressor being quicker to spool up – enabled Hamilton to close the tiny gap which had developed, again a question of milliseconds. The ebb and flow through this final sector was remarkable, Russell taking perhaps a fraction more kerb at the exit of Turn 12, sapping some momentum.

The data indicates Hamilton was in the regio of 0.066s up through Turn 13, though this is impossible to divine through comparison of the onboards. What you can see and hear on screen, and observe in the data, is what ultimately made the difference: the magnitude of the throttle lift at the final corner.

Hamilton was much closer to half-throttle during what was a short, sharp feathering. In contrast Russell was a gear lower – sixth rather than seventh – so he required far less of a lift, lost less momentum, and was able to upshift as he straightened the car up. An extra 10km/h of exit speed meant George was 0.064s to the good once he crossed the line.

George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and then Kimi Antonelli start at the sharp end tomorrow

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

Afterwards, Russell ascribed his reset to a back-to-basics approach, abandoning his recent practice of following what was working for Antonelli and expecting it to work for him.

“I've not looked at a single piece of data the whole weekend,” he said. “I've just driven the car and trusted my instincts, and that was a bit of a risk because these cars are so complicated. And you're always trying to find that next step of improvement.

“But that's what I've been doing with my team for the last few races. Kimi was performing so well, and I did a bit of a copy-paste of what was working for him, and it wasn't working for me.

“So, I was like, I need to trust my own gut here, and something was telling me I needed to go in my own direction, and I'm super glad I have.”