Alfa Romeo’s head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar feels that George Russell is a special driver who is making up for Williams' pace deficit against their rivals. Russell has threatened the points-paying positions in recent races which could have major implications for Alfa Romeo who have only scored two points and are eighth in the Constructors' Championship. “I have to say, Russell is quite special," Pujolar told RacingNews365.com and other select members of the press. He does a very good job in qualifying and we just need to work harder and must do better. But in the race, we are generally better in terms of pace. Silverstone will not be easy but you can see that we can race with them – not only Russell, but we can fight with Alpine, with Aston Martin and even one of the AlphaTauris. So it’s very tight.” “For sure, [Russell] has been putting in some strong qualifyings. We are trying to do that and are showing we are making improvements – but we want to do that with both cars, not only with one.” Pujolar thinks William's biggest strength is their straight line speed which makes them difficult to overtake during the race. Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi have only had a 10th place each after nine rounds and it's one lap pace where Puljolar feels Alfa Romeo are lacking pace. “I’m sure everyone always want to be better and we have understood better and we have improved our one-timed-lap performance and in the race we are still there because we have shown we are still fighting them," added Pujolar. “They [Williams] did a step in qualifying, not just against us because they were in front of the Ferraris and many other teams as well. “But then in the race they are not able to stay there. At the moment, that is good on our side, but we need to keep working hard because they are getting quite strong."
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