George Russell ‘glad to see chequered flag’ after battling illness in Baku

George Russell admitted he nearly did not compete at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after overcoming illness to finish an impressive second.

The Mercedes driver missed Thursday’s media day and was battling an infection throughout the weekend.

Russell qualified fifth on Saturday and delivered another superb display in the race, with a solid long first stint allowing him to leapfrog Williams’ Carlos Sainz and finish behind race winner Max Verstappen.

“I was pretty glad when I saw the chequered flag, to be honest. I was fortunate — I felt much better today than I felt on Friday and Saturday,” Russell said.

“Fortunately, it was Baku. Even though it’s one of the toughest circuits, mentally and physically it’s maybe one of the easiest.

“Had it been Singapore, as an example, I think I probably would have called it a day on Friday, to be honest, and probably wouldn’t have done the race.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff hailed Russell’s efforts.

“Very impressive considering on Friday morning it was nearly Valtteri (Bottas) in the car and it was George himself who said ‘I’m not sure I can do it’.

“Doing a one-and-a-half hour race here in Baku, not putting a single foot wrong. That was a super-merited P2.”

Mercedes enjoyed a strong weekend on the shores of the Caspian Sea, with under-pressure Kimi Antonelli coming home fourth.

There were jubilant scenes for Williams as Sainz delivered their first podium in over four years and only their second since 2017.

Sainz, a four-time race winner with Ferrari, almost doubled his points tally for the entire season after a mixed start since his move from the Scuderia.

The Spaniard, who told the PA news agency recently that he believes he can become world champion with Williams, said the podium underlines their progress.

“I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels. This is even better than my first ever podium that I did,” Sainz said.

“We’ve been fighting hard all year and finally today, we just proved that when we have the speed — we’ve had it all year — and everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.

“We are on the rise; we are in the right direction. Unfortunately, with me, we’ve had a lot of bad luck, a lot of incidents — very difficult to convert all that pace into results.

“But now I understand why it all happened, because the first podium needed to come like this.

“It’s just life, you know? Life just sometimes brings you those bad moments to give you a very nice one.”