George Russell, Mercedes, Yas Marina, 2025

George Russell believes his chances of finishing on the podium in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix could be aided by Max Verstappen’s tactics for the championship-deciding race.

Verstappen will start the race from pole position ahead of his championship rivals Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The Red Bull driver’s best chance of clinching the championship is if he wins the race and Norris finishes outside the top three.

Russell, who qualified fourth, says that could present him the opportunity to get among the front runners.

“I don’t think we’re in the fight with those three again, but I can’t imagine Max is just going to sit there and let them all drive off into the sunset and finish one-two-three,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “So there could be opportunities.

“We’ll play it by ear. For sure the team are going to be up all night making plans, but I’m pretty confident those plans are going to be pretty different by lap one, lap two, every single lap of the race. So it’ll be an interesting one.”

The Mercedes driver was quickest of all in the final practice session and led Q2. However he said it came as no surprise that the three championship contenders beat him in Q3.

“Obviously we were near the top of the leaderboard in Q1 and at the top of Q2 but those three around me were on the old tyres and they were matching my lap time,” he explained. “So we knew they were going to be a step ahead and I knew that I had to do something special just to even be in the fight.

“So I wasn’t very happy with Q3 but honestly anything higher than [fourth] was not really a possibility today. So we’ll take it.”

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