George Russell explains reasons for Mercedes' struggle after 'fortunate' Imola finish

dailystar.co.uk:

George Russell has explained the car's struggles so far this season and believes his fourth-placed finish at Imola was 'fortunate'.The ex-Williams ace has finished in the top five in each of his four races for Mercedes so far this season, rising from 12th on the grid at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to maintain that record and ease frustrations after a difficult weekend.Friday's qualifying session saw Mercedes fail to reach the final round for the first time in a decade, while Russell and teammate Lewis Hamilton were unable to improve on their starting positions for the race in Saturday's Sprint.Russell did at least have reasons to be cheerful when the chequered flag was raised at Imola though following his triumphant charge through the grid, with Hamilton finishing outside the points and Toto Wolff admitting the car was 'undriveable'.Mercedes' 'porpoising' issues have been well documented this season, with the team unable to retain pace like the Ferrari's have despite their own issues with bouncing, but Russell explained that it's not the only problem they need to overcome."I’m relatively pleased to maximise the points available this weekend.

Whether we’re getting the most out of the car is a different story and I do think things have fallen slightly in our favour with these first four races.

I’m really happy with this P4, but if we want to sustain this position in the championship, we need to find more pace."We’ve got these overall limitations with the car with the bouncing, and we know that we are struggling with the tyre warm up and this is the coldest race weekend we’ve had by far this year.

I think it’s been a bit of a trend since Bahrain, we’ve progressively gotten a bit slower in qualifying, and I think that’s.