Russell: Fortunate to get the podium, but we will take it

Mercedes never looked like contenders for a podium at any point of the grand prix in Baku on Sunday. That is until Sainz and Perez crashed while fighting for the final podium position on Lap 50.

Russell, who was running fifth at that point, was best placed to capitalize on the incident and finished third as the race ended under the virtual safety car.

Lewis Hamilton qualified seventh for the race but started from the pitlane after taking a new power unit, with Mercedes also breaking parc ferme conditions on his car to change the setup.

The seven-time Formula 1 champion struggled all race long with his tyres' temperatures and was also fortunate to score points following Sainz's and Perez's crash, finishing ninth.

All in all, it was one of those weekends for Mercedes who did not know when their W15 was fast or why it was slow. Speaking in Mercedes' race report, Russell said: "It was a really strange race today.

"It was very difficult on the Medium tyre in my first stint. I was over one second off the ultimate pace and finding it hard to control the rear tyre surface temperatures.

"On the Hard tyre in my second stint, the car felt brilliant. In the final 20 laps, I was lapping one second quicker than those at the very front. It is hard to work out exactly why this was and is a little frustrating.

"We were fortunate to get onto the podium," Russell continued, "and I am glad that both Carlos (Sainz) and Checo (Perez) are OK. We were having a relatively quiet run to P5 after I got past Verstappen, but we will take it.

"It is a good reward for all the efforts of the team after a challenging weekend on the whole," he concluded.

"Today was a difficult race," Hamilton reflected. "We had a good day on Friday, but the rest of the weekend was tough. We made some changes heading into Saturday that didn't work out, but we had to live with them. We also knew it would be challenging to overtake today. Despite the long straight, it is hard to follow through the second sector.

"Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman, who I was racing for a lot of the afternoon, did such a great job. It is great to see the youngsters like them coming through and doing so well. For their first and second races, it was very impressive," he added, hailing Williams' and Haas' rookies.

Hamilton tried to take some positives from his tough Sunday afternoon in Baku; he added: "Despite how tough my own race was, the positives are that George had a decent race and was able to score some good points for the team.

"We've also got lots of data to work through ahead of Singapore. We've got some upgrades coming before the end of the year, so hopefully we can make a step closer to those at the front soon," he concluded.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff also tried to see the glass half full as he summed up his team's Azerbaijan GP weekend; he said: "We will take the positive from today that we were able to get one car on the podium.

"We saw that it was getting feisty at the front, and that ultimately ended with Sainz and Perez in the wall. Inheriting a podium and finishing third is better than we expected, but we are not fooling ourselves that, on pace today, we were P5.

"We will analyse the race and weekend as a whole," Wolff insisted. "The second half of our Grand Prix on the Hard tyre was encouraging. George was able to keep the temperatures under control and, having driven within himself early in the stint, was able to deliver strong pace in the closing stages. It was more difficult for Lewis with the traffic he faced, but at moments, he showed good speed.

"We now head to Singapore, and it is another difficult circuit to know how everyone will perform. We will dig through the data from this weekend, aim to improve the car balance, and have a stronger weekend there," the Austrian concluded.