Formula One driver George Russell finishes sixth in the Mexico City Grand Prix

George Russell felt satisfied with his sixth place finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix despite tyre degradation issues making it feel like 'driving on ice for the last 20 laps.'

Russell finished another race away from the top five but was optimistic ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix this weekend where he took a stunning victory last year.

The driver from Tydd St Giles missed out on the opening session of last weekend as Frederik Vesti took his Mercedes seat to fulfil the rule of allowing a rookie in the car once a season.

Once on track, Russell had a mediocre showing in Friday practice with lap times good enough for 10th but he found pace in the Saturday session which boded well for qualifying.

Starting qualifying on the medium tyre to save the softer compounds for later, Russell set a storming lap to take him up to third and through to the second stage despite other drivers setting lap times and dropping him to 12th.

Mercedes found some impressive speed in the second stage with Russell third and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton topping the timesheets, however, this did not continue when it mattered.

In the final stage, Russell’s first lap was on old tyres and put him fifth but he failed to improve on his second attempt with fresher rubber and only managed eighth.

Starting the Grand Prix alongside Oscar Piastri on the medium tyre, Russell made it up to sixth in the first few cars but then was caught in another tussle with the young Australian and dropped to seventh.

After the virtual safety car, Russell mounted a charge on Piastri however failed to make an overtake and only moved up the field into fifth after other drivers made their pit stops.

Russell then made his pit stop onto the hard tyre after which he began to make genuine progress on as a series of overtakes took the 25-year-old up to seventh before a red flag was deployed due to a large crash from Kevin Magnussen.

After a switch to the medium tyres under red flag conditions, a standing start ensued where Russell made up two positions. The Brit then spent an agonisingly long time trying to overtake Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz but to no avail.

In the closing stages, Russell’s medium tyres were aging badly and the Mercedes driver was nursing a brake issue which caused him to drop back and be overtaken by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

On the final lap, Daniel Ricciardo made an attempt to pass Russell and came within less than a tenth of a second however he managed to hold out and retain sixth position.

Russell said: "I felt really good in the car, the pace was there so definitely a positive from this weekend. I was right behind Carlos wanting to overtake when my brakes overheated.

“We were concerned about making it to the end, so I had to back off and that’s where I lost all the temperature in the tyres and didn’t manage to get them back into the right window. It was like driving on ice for the last 20 laps so I’m glad I managed to finish in sixth.

“Another difficult weekend for us but the car was performing well. We just need to have some clean weekends and show consistency, but I'm confident we'll achieve that.

“I’m looking forward to Brazil and I hope that we will show some good pace and hopefully we will be in a position to fight for the podium."

The 2023 Formula One season continues this weekend at the São Paulo Grand Prix.