Russell hit with pit lane start for United States GP

George Russell is to start the United States Grand Prix from the Austin pit lane. 

Mercedes struggled during qualifying in Texas, with Lewis Hamilton knocked out as 19th fastest in Q1, his first Q1 exit on pure pace since the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. 

He reported a suspension issue on his W15 on the formation lap from the sprint earlier in the day which could not be fixed as only Zhou Guanyu qualified slower than the five-time Austin winner. 

As for Russell, he has fallen foul of the regulation that dictates parts changed in parc ferme must be of the same specification to those replaced.

Russell struggled throughout qualifying on Saturday before he spun into the barriers in the dying moments of the session.

His crash at the end of Q3 resulted in most of the fresh upgrades being destroyed, meaning he reverted to the old-spec, triggering the pit-lane start.

“Following George’s accident in qualifying, we had to work on the car overnight during the cars covered period,” said a Mercedes spokesperson. 

“He will therefore start from the pit lane today. The workload involved in that was due to reverting on specification to what we ran in Singapore.”

The full adjusted starting grid can be found here.