The lessons Russell can take from his "two-centimetre" Singapore F1 mistake

“In the moment, you just want to curl up in a ball and be with nobody."

So said George Russell moments after his race-ending trip to the wall at the Singapore Grand Prix, when a first Formula 1 victory of the season had been tantalisingly close to his grasp in the dying stages of a breathless encounter. The Mercedes driver had been unwavering in his pursuit of eventual race winner Carlos Sainz and ratcheted up the pressure following the safety car period at the end of the race's opening third. It was, per Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, a "99.9% fantastic weekend" - but that final 0.01% tainted his otherwise stellar performance at the end.

With a front-row start, Russell knew he was on for a potential victory in Singapore. It didn't matter that Sainz had got pole, and nor did it matter if he wasn't able to mount an assault for the lead on the first lap, as Mercedes had an ace up its sleeve that it was particularly keen to play. Mercedes spent much of FP1 and FP3 running around on the hard tyres, ensuring it could save a set of mediums for Sunday's 62-lap encounter. It wasn't a particularly well-kept secret; the audience saw Mercedes' strategists slide that ace under their cufflinks, and Russell bullishly drew attention to it after qualifying. Mind games? Misdirection? Or just naïveté?

Regardless, it was something Ferrari looked for in its own strategy, as it knew a late-race Mercedes stop could be devastating for its own chances. Sainz tried to congest the field to ensure Mercedes did not have a gap to drop into if it elected to cede track position, but he could do little to stop the brace of W14s pitting when Esteban Ocon's broken Alpine prompted a virtual safety car. The predicted time delta between a green-flag stop and a VSC one was about 13-14 seconds, so it made complete sense for Mercedes to withdraw the ace card it had so conspicuously hidden.

When the two Mercedes roared past Charles Leclerc, it seemed inevitable that one of them would win. Russell, the lead Mercedes, was in the box seat and had reeled in Lando Norris by the 59th lap. Sainz was effectively fighting a proxy war, taking Norris as his vassal, and the Spaniard kept his ex-team-mate handily supplied with DRS assistance to ensure he had equal firepower over the straights. Russell got the better exit out of Turn 13, however, and attempted to out-drag his fellow Briton over the Jubilee Bridge. Norris opened his DRS flap and placed his car in the middle of the road to defend into the subsequent right-hander. This compromised his exit as Russell took a wider line in, but Norris had the shorter line to the kink on the 'new' back stretch - the circuit forced into revisions with building work around the Marina Bay grandstand section.

PLUS: The Singapore secrets that helped Sainz end Verstappen's F1 winning streak

Russell had been lurking behind Sainz all race, but couldn't make it count

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Drivers had lobbied for DRS here, but the FIA did not grant such luxuries as the teams had already vetoed it. With DRS, Russell might have had a better chance at mounting an overtake into the Turn 16-17 chicane, but instead, Norris had just enough to pull ahead and sweep across the road to defend the inside line - Russell switching to the outside line in response. At this point, Sainz had the presence of mind to back off and keep Norris within a second of his gearbox as the McLaren had strayed outside. Russell's best opportunity had gone; he needed to retreat for one last-lap attack, and hope both Norris and Sainz could fall.

This was where Russell faltered at the final hurdle. Norris actually made the mistake first at Turn 10, having touched the outside wall at the site of the former Singapore Sling chicane to knock his steering out of alignment, but Russell hit it even harder. It was a microscopic mistake in scale, but it had huge consequences; Russell went straight into the barrier and his race ended nine corners sooner than it should. The Sling's drinking days may be over, but it still packs a bitter punch as an aftertaste.

Ever the exacting self-critic, Russell took the incident to heart. He knew that it took just a few millimetres outside of his normal line to cause it and that he'd dealt with the intensity of the prior 61 laps only to fall to self-immolation hurt even more.

"If I spun off and had a lock up, it would have been very different but I clipped the wall on the last lap. It is such a pathetic mistake" George Russell

"It is the most horrendous feeling in the world when you are so physically drained, mentally drained. We missed out on an opportunity for victory and then to make such a mistake, it is truly heart-breaking," Russell lamented.

"It was such a nothing of a mistake. If I spun off and had a lock-up, it would have been very different but I clipped the wall on the last lap. It is such a pathetic mistake and that is why it feels so strange right now. It's probably that lack of concentration… It was the last lap and I knew that opportunity was gone. It goes to show that you need to stay on it. It doesn’t matter what the scenario is."

There's no doubt that Russell had woken up on Monday morning raring to go at Suzuka. Amid his frustration and despair post-Singapore, he retained enough presence of mind to appreciate the run of form that he was in - and felt he was "driving better" than ever before over his F1 career.

After a stellar showing up until his last-lap crash, Russell will be desperate to make amends this weekend in Japan

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Although Russell had kicked off 2023 in good form, his penchant for overcomplicating things and demanding absolute perfection arguably tied him up in knots. A vow to simplify his approach after the summer appears to have paid off and he deserves full credit for making a race of it in Singapore having sensed that opportunity to win. After all, Red Bull may recover its irresistible form over the rest of the season, and require the chasing pack to be content with third and fourth places once more. Russell gave it everything - and on a different day, his efforts may well have paid off.

Wolff reckons that Russell's mistake will be good for his development in the long term. As much as mistakes are vilified at motorsport's top table, they're also vital to the progress of drivers; Hamilton and Verstappen spent a long time in their early years learning what not to do, so that they could truly understand how to carry themselves as prospective champions.

"What I said to him is I'd rather have this happening now and the learning is there, than when we race for a victory or for a championship," reckoned Wolff. "That's going to be engraved in him, this mistake. We must not forget it's his second year in a competitive car and he was really giving it all he had. He was pushing hard in order to win the race. At that stage, the only way of overtaking Norris and maybe Sainz was to just not leave a millimetre on track."

And Wolff's right; should he find himself in future championship battles, Russell will need to know when to fight for those wins and when to bank the points. Were he battling for a title in Singapore, there's no doubt he'd have eased off - but regardless, it's a learning opportunity that he should be grateful for. Perhaps there's an opportunity to learn when to keep his powder dry too; Ferrari may well have forecasted the extra-medium-set strategy on its own, but its public heralding pre-race certainly helped to guide the Scuderia's path to victory.

Russell can also learn from his career so far; he made mistakes at Williams when in points-scoring positions and eventually learned how to cope with the pressure. Stepping up from the back of the grid to the front requires another adjustment; points-scoring becomes routine, and it's the wins that start to carry that level of pressure. Only with time does a driver get used to the pressure; Mercedes knows this and wants to afford Russell the time to acclimatise while it is out of the running for titles.

"I’m not going to let a mistake of two centimetres knock me down," Russell vowed. And nor should he - he'll have similar races in the future, and he'll know how to play it next time.

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Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images