{"id":6960,"date":"2020-12-06T12:02:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T12:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=6960"},"modified":"2020-12-06T12:02:01","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T12:02:01","slug":"di-resta-reckons-russell-could-easily-qualify-p1-at-sakhir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=6960","title":{"rendered":"Di Resta reckons Russell could &#8216;easily&#8217; qualify P1 at Sakhir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Sky F1<\/em> pundit Paul di Resta believes George Russell could &#8220;easily&#8221; qualify on pole with Mercedes in this weekend&#8217;s Sakhir GP.<\/p>\n<p>Exceptional circumstances have led to Russell being handed a monumental break in the penultimate round of the 2020 F1 season.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis Hamilton sudden unavailability after testing positive for COVID-19 prompted Mercedes to successfully negotiate with Williams a one-off release of its young talent.<\/p>\n<p>Russell&#8217;s fans are bracing for a shootout of sorts at Mercedes between their favourite driver and Valtteri Bottas. And di Resta expects the fight t be tight between the two contenders at Sakhir.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Honestly, when you look at it and you see what Hulkenberg did when he stood in this year, you\u2019d expect him to line up on the front row. He could very easily qualify in P1,&#8221; the former F1 driver said on <em>Sky Sports.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is where Valtteri\u2019s got to make a stamp because this is the fight. Who is going to be the No 2 at Mercedes?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The expectation going into a seven-time world champion\u2019s car\u2026 it\u2019s a very decent ask. He\u2019s not having a test first, what he\u2019s doing is going straight into where Lewis has left off.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;George has done an excellent job in qualifying, he has absolutely excelled. What we haven\u2019t seen is how he manages with leadership, and the pressure at Mercedes. But he\u2019s definitely in the best car.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think he\u2019ll be very professional. He\u2019s at a good age, he\u2019s got a number of people supporting him, especially right at the top. He\u2019s in a great position to make an impression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\nRead also: &#8216;Nobody can replace Lewis&#8217; admits Mercedes-bound Russell\n<\/ul>\n<p>Russell won&#8217;t be the only young driver making his debut with a team in Bahrain, with Jack Aitken filling in for the Briton at Williams and Pietro Fittipaldi taking over Romain Grosjean&#8217;s seat at Haas.<\/p>\n<p>However,<em> Sky F1&#8217;s<\/em> Anthony Davidson believes there will be far more pressure on Russell than on F1&#8217;s two rookies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the car that everyone dreams of being in: The Mercedes, the car that Lewis dominates the world in,&#8221; said Davidson.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s not good enough to be fast, and show your lap times, you have to have a bit of luck and timing on your side as well. This is George\u2019s chance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s a clear difference between Pietro Fittipaldi jumping in for Romain Grosjean, or Jack Aitken at Williams, this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s low expectations on those guys, while George \u2013 despite being in a bad car at the back of the grid \u2013 he comes with the expectation of having to deliver because he has delivered in a Williams before. Now he\u2019ll be expected to deliver in a Mercedes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reference of Bottas stays for George, so it will be fascinating to see how George gets on against that known quantity in Bottas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers<\/p>\n<p><em>Keep up to date with all the F1 news via <\/em><em>Facebook<\/em><em> and <\/em><em>Twitter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sky F1 pundit Paul di Resta believes George Russell could &#8220;easily&#8221; qualify on pole with Mercedes in this weekend&#8217;s Sakhir GP. Exceptional circumstances have led to Russell being handed a monumental break in the penultimate round of the 2020 F1 season. Lewis Hamilton sudden unavailability after testing positive for COVID-19 prompted Mercedes to successfully negotiate&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}