Wi☂lliams Formula 1 driver George Russelll says he was “rඣelieved” to put a nightmare Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend behind him.

The British rookie started the Baku weekend battling illness and 🐭saw his running hampered when he hit a loose manhole cover just 15 minutes into Friday’s opening prac🌠tice session, which forced him to sit out of FP2 while Williams carried out repairs to his heavily-damaged FW42.

Despite his lack of mileage♋, Russell was able to out-qualify teammate Robert Kubica before enduring another lonely race on his way to finishing two laps down in 15th.

“It was as good as could be really,” he said. “We knew coming into this weekend that it would probably be the hardest weekend of the yea✤r for us.

“Put that on top of myself being really ill since the start of last week, and then Friday with the manhole cover ruining th൩e whole of Friday and the guys hav𓆉ing to work all day and through the night to get the car fixed, I was quite relieved for the weekend to be over.”

Russell faced an interesting end to the race when the squabbling race-leading Mercedes pair of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis 🥃Hamilton came up to lap him.

“I was aware they were racing,” Russell explained. “I had put on the soft tyres at the end and just couldn’t get them working so I felt l♌ike I was driving on ice.

“ꦰAnd I was like ‘Bloody hell, I hope I don’t get in the way here or do anything stupid!’ Especially being Mercedes and everything.

“They flew by and before I🅺 kn🗹ew it I couldn’t see them anymore, but good TV time, eh?"

It was a miserable weekend all-round for Williams, as Kubica “paid a high price” for a hefty qualifying cr🧔ash by starting the race from the pit lane, only to be handed a drive-through pena🦋lty for being sent to the end of the pit lane nine minutes too early.

His race was plagued by brakཧing issues throughout, leaving him low on confidence in a car tha🃏t was “uncomfortable” to drive.

“It wasn’t an easy race,” Kubica 🧸said. “I made it more complicated yesterday by putting the car on the wall.

“Thanks to the guys, they did a very good job, I was able to start the race, we chose to start from th𝐆e pit lane for techni🎃cal reasons.

“I was nearly on the wall already on the first br🌄aking, it was a good warning. Unfortunately, I suffered all weekend with some issues on braking, the pedal of the car was pulling to one side, I got this big warning which was kind of wake up [call] and tried to bring the car🃏 home.

“It wasn’t easy as following cars on opening laps was not giving you at all confidence, and with walls next to you and with poor grip we are having it’s re💛ally uncomfortable to drive. Stayed positive in the end and we managed to finish ♛the race. Was a long race but thanks to all the team we were able to do it.”