George Russell rings Mercedes alarm: 'We were nowhere'

George Russell has highlighted how he was "nowhere" at the start of qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver was able to recover over the grid-setting session at Suzuka, but was unable to trouble Kimi Antonelli for pole position, instead having to settle for second.

It is the second round in succession the British driver has had to play second fiddle to his team-mate in qualifying, after problems with his W17 severely affected him in China.

Whilst whatever issues he faced this time were less obviously egregious, they did leave the six-time grand prix winner lacking the pace he had enjoyed through practice.

"They did a great job again," Russell said after qualifying in Japan. "Really strange session for us; we were both very fast all weekend.

"We made some adjustments after FP3, and then the beginning of qualifying, we were nowhere."

In Q1, Russell found himself slightly down the order and about six-tenths of a second adrift of Antonelli.

Although he was able to halve that deficit come Q3, he will need to dive into the data to analyse what went wrong.

"So, need to kind of understand, very lucky again to be in P2," he added.

Nonetheless, Russell was keen to point out that the points will be awarded tomorrow, concluding with: "The last two weekends, it's kind of both gone wrong come qualifying, but the race is tomorrow and still a lot to play for."