Russell was annoyed, frustrated, and completely unsettled.
On the very first day of the new season, not a single thing had gone according to plan.
He'd lost to Kai. Damn it.
He'd lost to Aitken. Frustrating.
He'd even finished behind Boccolacci from Trident.
He thought he'd only have to worry about Kai and Aitken, but now Boccolacci was ahead of him, too. It was infuriating.
Of course, Russell was still rational. This was just qualifying. The race was another matter entirely. But he also knew that Mercedes-Benz was watching. Every performance mattered. There was no room for error.
He was furious with himself. If Kai could extract that much from the car, why couldn't he? And why was the gap so large?
Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice the strange atmosphere in the garage, the muffled noises. It wasn't until he looked up that he saw every eye in the pit box sneakily glancing his way.
Something was wrong.
His first thought was that his poor qualifying was the center of attention. Then he noticed Hubert and Leclerc.
His two friends were standing next to Kai, their faces still twitching, trying to suppress their laughter.
"...Go ahead, be gone with it..."
Finally, as the music swelled, Russell heard it. Justin Timberlake's voice was echoing through the garage.
He instantly, instinctively, glared at Kai, but immediately remembered they were in public and tried to control his expression. But the song just kept playing.
He could see the team mechanics all trying not to laugh. Some had to turn around, their shoulders shaking.
Just then, Kai clapped Leclerc on the shoulder. "Charles, did you hear that? 'Go ahead, be gone with it.' Justin is summoning you."
Leclerc looked horrified, as if he'd just seen a ghost. He waved his hands, "No, no, no, I have to go, we're on track soon..."
"Charles, Justin is calling for you!"
Leclerc didn't even look back. He just fled, sprinting out of the ART garage as if he'd seen a monster.
The garage finally exploded in laughter.
Jack Aitken, who had just taken his helmet off, watched the scene, his face a mask of stone. He glanced at Kai, but he didn't have time for this. He walked straight to his race engineer. The bad taste in his mouth was still there, but he was already re-focusing.
Qualifying was just qualifying. The race was what mattered. If he won the race, the opening weekend was still his. Besides, he was starting P2, on the front row with Kai. At this track, he was in the best possible position to attack. The race could be decided in the first corner.
He had to focus on his own race.
Russell noticed Aitken's departure. He was right. Aitken was the target. He couldn't let one bad qualifying session shake him. He, too, began to focus, his mind already calculating the start.
The run from the grid to Turn 1 at Barcelona was a massive 549 meters.
If he could nail the start, get a good reaction, and tuck into the slipstream of the cars in front, he could easily make up places before they even reached the braking zone. He could even take the lead.
He took a deep breath. He was done with Kai. Let him have his moment. They'd see who was laughing at the end.
The pit garage was suddenly thick with unspoken rivalries.
Hubert noticed it all and gave Kai a knowing look.
Kai just held his phone up and announced to the garage, "Guys, Justin would be so disappointed. Is no one going to dance?"
That broke the tension again. Whistles and applause, and someone actually did a little shimmy.
Saturday was a packed schedule.
F1 Qualifying: Hamilton on pole, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel a heartbreaking 0.051 seconds behind in P2.
F2 Feature Race: Charles Leclerc took a dominant, lights-to-flag victory.
And at 5:20 PM, it was time for the GP3 Feature Race.
The paddock was half-empty. Kai's pole had been a shock, but in GP3, flukes happened. It wasn't enough to make the F1 bosses stick around. The fans, too, had started to leave. With no Spanish driver in the GP3 field, the local crowd had lost interest.
The grid was set. Kai was on pole (P1), on the "clean" side of the track. Aitken was P2, on the "dirty" side. Russell was P4, also on the dirty side, behind Boccolacci in P3.
On a track with high tire wear, the dirty side was a disadvantage. But with a 549-meter run to Turn 1, there was a massive opportunity for the cars behind to use the slipstream.
The track was rubbered-in. The window was open. And the rookie on pole was a target.
Vroooom!
The engines roared to life. After the formation lap, 19 cars filed into their grid slots.
The five red lights came on.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
A collective intake of breath.
The lights went out.
The start was a blur of motion, a torrent of cars flooding the tarmac.
From P4, George Russell got a perfect start. His launch was flawless. He shot from the line, his car like an arrow, and immediately tucked into the slipstream of Jack Aitken in P2. He saw, in an instant, that Aitken's reaction had been a fraction slower, a tiny mistake that, in this sport, was fatal.
Without hesitating, Russell yanked his car out of the slipstream, his speed exploding as he pulled alongside Aitken. In his vision, the pole-sitter, Kai, was just ahead and to the right. But Russell also realized he wasn't the only one.
To his left, from P3, Boccolacci was coming, and he was coming fast.
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