George Russell finishes sixth in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

George Russell thinks Mercedes have not maximised their car's potential and found the 'sweet spot' after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Despite this, Russell extended his run of beating his Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, to three races in a row with a sixth place finish.

Russell had a strong start to the weekend with fourth in the first and third practice sessions and then an impressive second place in his Thursday evening outing.

In qualifying, Russell put on a mediocre showing as Mercedes' plan of using the medium tyre in the first session was less than effective and as such the driver who hails from Tydd St Giles had to do more laps to ensure he progressed to the next stage.

Russell's fortunes improved in the second stage as his first lap sent him to the top of the timesheets and, after a brief red flag period, he breezed through to the final top 10 shoot-out.

The Mercedes driver pulled off another impressive opening lap to go top, however on his all-important final run, Russell made a mistake which ruined his time and led to him qualifying in seventh.

Russell did continue his run of never being out-qualified by a teammate in Jeddah and he has now beaten Hamilton in qualifying for four races in a row.

Starting on the medium tyre alongside his team-mate, Russell had a decent start and maintained position on the opening lap.

A few laps later, the safety car was deployed which gave Russell the opportunity to take a pit stop without losing as much time and, due to this, he made his only tyre change of the race onto the hard compound which dropped the 26-year-old to ninth.

After a handful of overtakes and other drivers making their pit stops, Russell made his way up to sixth behind Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.

Throughout the second half of the race, Russell was within a second of Alonso on a handful of occasions but never had the pace to get past and as such he finished in sixth after an uneventful performance.

He said: "It was a long evening out there. I spent nearly 40 laps within 1.5 seconds of Fernando Alonso but couldn’t get past.

"I had a slippery car on the straights, but I couldn't get close enough in the high-speed to give him any real pressure.

"Sixth was likely a fair result in the end and it’s clear that we haven’t found the sweet spot with this car just yet.

"Overall though, we need to find a bit more performance. We’ve seen potential and pace in the car, but we haven’t shown it when it’s mattered. We need to understand why that is and improve ahead of Melbourne.

"As we’ve seen, the pecking order behind the Red Bulls is very close so we need to get on top of it. There’s lots of work to do but I believe in the team."

The 2024 Formula One season continues on March 22-24 for the Australian Grand Prix - the race at which Russell made his debut.