George Russell explains what caused “painful” Las Vegas GP pace collapse

George Russell has detailed the factors that led to his dramatic drop in pace in the latter stages of the 2025 F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Russell secured his ninth podium of the year, finishing second following McLaren’s double disqualification.

The British driver was running second in the early phase of the race as he tried to attack Max Verstappen.

He attempted to put Verstappen under pressure again after making his only pit stop of the race, before dropping back and losing track position to Lando Norris.

Russell’s pace continued to drop off, and it looked like his podium position was potentially under threat.

Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, who completed 48 of the 50 laps on one set of tyres, reeled Russell in at the end of the race and even pulled away from Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.

Explaining his lack of race pace in Las Vegas, Russell told F1 TV: “I had the steering problem again from about Lap 5, the same as I did in Qualifying.

“I managed to drive around this and I got used to the challenges of this problem, and the pace looked quite good in stint one.

“Then, at the start of my second stint when Max Verstappen came out of the pits, I was like ‘right, I’m going to attack now’ to see if I could take the lead, and I grained my tyres, the front-right tyre.

“I said to the team ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end on this tyre’, but they were confident considering the gap. But every lap was so painful. I was going slower, and slower, and slower, and I was like ‘this is not fun’. P3 was the maximum today, but other than Lap 1, it just wasn’t an enjoyable race.”

Russell on Mercedes’ F1 form

Mercedes dominated the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix, with Russell winning ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

This year, they were unable to replicate their incredible race-winning pace.

Russell feels that it’s just a consequence of having a car that performs across a wider range of circuits, rather than excelling only at outliers.

As a result, it has benefitted Mercedes, who sit comfortably in second place in the 2025 F1 constructors’ championship.

“I think if you just take the average of this season – if you look at Singapore last year, we were terrible and we won this year; last year we were dominant in Vegas and we finished on the podium [this year],” he added.

“We’ve got a car that is better across 24 races, whereas last year, we had a car that was either exceptionally dominant or terrible.

“So we have a better car for a 24-race season. Unfortunately, we may not get as many highlights, but we get more points in a season.”