George Russell claims podium with third place finish at 2022 Italian Grand Prix

George Russell scored his eighth career podium with a third place finish at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday.

His second consecutive podium means he has finished 15 of the 16 races in the 2022 Formula One World Championship in the top five.

Russell had a reasonable start to the race weekend, setting lap times sufficient for third and fifth in the Friday practice sessions as he struggled with tyres and the electrical hybrid system.

The driver from Tydd went into the qualifying session confident as throughout the session he would benefit from an aerodynamic slipstream ‘tow’ from his team-mate Lewis Hamilton - who started from the back of the grid due to power unit penalties.

Russell easily went through the first and second stages of qualifying with lap times good enough to put the Mercedes driver into fifth and sixth in the two sessions.

In the final stage of qualifying, Russell once again struggled to generate tyre temperature - and despite the ‘tow’ he could only produce a lap time good enough for sixth in qualifying.

However, due to power unit grid penalties for the drivers ahead of him, Russell was promoted to second on the grid - his second front-row start of the season.

Russell made a strong start with a quicker launch than pole-sitter Charles Leclerc, but was pushed wide at the first corner and forced over the sausage kerbs - compromising his chances at challenging for the lead.

Four laps later, Russell was overtaken by championship leader Max Verstappen - which demoted him to third place, which he held until Leclerc made his first pit stop that moved the 24-year-old up a position.

Russell had an impressively long first stint on the soft compound tyre and came into the pits on lap 24 to switch to the hard compound, moving him down to fourth behind both Ferrari cars.

The majority of Russell’s second stint was uneventful as he failed to catch those ahead but did move up a position after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz pitted.

On lap 48, the safety car was deployed due to a stranded car on track. This left Russell able to switch to scrubbed soft tyres without losing positions in the hope of making a charge in the closing stages.

Unfortunately, the race ended under safety car conditions with Russell in third place, beating his seven-time world champion team-mate for the third consecutive race.

Russell said: “Unfortunately, this weekend we were not where we wanted to be as a team - but, it doesn’t matter if we are fast or slow, we keep getting these podium finishes.

“Over this triple header, two of the three weekends have been very difficult, and I’ve still come away with two podiums and a fourth place, so we’ve got to be satisfied with that.

“Looking at Sunday’s race, we had to do something different if we wanted to fight with Max and Charles, so we went for the hard tyre at the stop, but they were just too quick. That’s all we could do in our position.

“Now we have some weeks to recharge, regroup as a team and prepare for the final part of this season, so we can take every opportunity that comes our way.”

The 2022 Formula One season continues with the Singapore Grand Prix from September 30 to October 2.