George Russell started the 2016 FIA Formula 3 European Championship off with a podium for Hitech, in the first race of their first FIA F3 campaign. After qualifying 4th, Russell made use of a great start to haul himself into the podium positions, which he held to the flag - taking the first silverware of the season.

Russell, though, had a huge amount of work to do for the remaining races– having originally secured a front row spot in second qualifying, his times were disallowed when the fuel remaining in his car fell fractionally below the minimum permitted so he was put to the back for races 2 and 3.

Determined to make as much headway as possible, Russell did just that on the opening lap as he climbed from 21st on the grid into 13th place at the start of Race Two making further progress to 11th at the flag.

Into Race Three, a stunning first lap – during which he rocketed into 14th position from the back of the grid – was undone when he was forced to pit at the end of lap three after sustaining damage to his front wing. Emerging back into the race with a new nose cone, Russell eventually ended the contest in 18th position

George Russell “We have a lot of positives to take from the weekend. We had absolutely mega pace throughout, qualifying P4, P2 and P2, just 0.01 seconds off pole in Q2. Unfortunately, we had a slight miss-calculation with our fuel load and came in less than 0.1 litres under the limit which meant we got disqualified from Q2. That was a massive shame as we were plenty over the weight limit, so this really did not affect our pace at all. But rules are rules.
“In race one, we made a good start and got into P3, and ended that way. It was great to get Hitech's first podium in the championship which I'm sure is the first of many. In races two and three, we had to try and make the best out of a bad situation, starting from last on the grid. We showed great pace in race three, quicker than the leaders on almost every lap which was very positive. Overall it's a massive disappointment to get two potential podiums taken away from us, but that's how the game works and I'm sure we'll come back stronger than ever.” 

Report: Hitech GP

Images: Wafeproject (Davide Pastanella)