George Russell: We definitely couldn't fight for pole.

      George Russell posted the fifth-fastest time in the sprint qualifying in Austin, after which he said they could have finished higher, but Mercedes had no chance of pole. His teammate Kimi Antonelli is upset because he failed to make it through to the final session.

      George Russell (5th): "We could have produced a higher result, but we definitely couldn't fight for pole. Nico Hülkenberg put in a surprisingly good lap, and he's fourth — we didn't expect a Sauber to be starting ahead of us in the sprint, but congratulations to him and his team.

      We've been saying since the start of the year that on a good day we can perform excellently, and on a bad day we'll be fifth, and today can't be called a good day. We're only fifth, but when a sprint is part of the weekend programme you sometimes have to face difficulties.

      However, usually our car handles races better than it does qualifying, because we have problems at high speed. But we know that on weekends like this difficulties are to be expected, and in tomorrow's sprint we'll do everything we can, after which we'll try to improve the car while preparing for the main qualifying of the weekend and for the race."

      Kimi Antonelli (11th): "I'm upset that I didn't get through to the final session, especially as I was just a little short of making it. In the first part of qualifying I felt comfortable in the car, and it only took one attempt to get through to the second.

      But on my last lap in the second part of qualifying I had two heavy lock-ups, and that cost me dearly. Definitely, the car's pace would have been enough to reach the final and fight for positions in the top five — so there's plenty to be disappointed about.

      But by tomorrow we'll reset, try to run the sprint as aggressively as possible, and then we need to perform as well as we can in the main qualifying of the weekend.

      In practice the long-run pace gave more confidence than the qualifying speed. I hope that will help us on Sunday. But we understand we won't be able to show that if we don't start from the front rows.

      We'll keep working on the car while preparing for tomorrow's qualifying, use the sprint to gather as much information as possible, and we'll do everything to perform as well as we can."