Метка: George Russell

No excuses for «mistake» that got Russell disqualified from Belgian GP

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Toto Wolff says Mercedes has «no excuse» and «clearly made a mistake» that lost George Russell his Belgian GP victory in a technical rules breach.

Russell has been stripped of the victory he took ahead of long-time race leader and his Mercedes team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, after Russell’s W15 was found to be 1.5kg underweight in post-race checks.

After the race, questions were posed over whether the winning one-stop strategy led to Russell’s car being underweight.

Speaking before the outcome of the Spa stewards’ investigation into the matter was announced, Wolff had said, «No, I think it’s a one-stop that … you expect lots of rubber, maybe more, but there’s no excuse».

He had been responding to a question that asked if there was anything Mercedes had been aware of that could have caused Russell’s car to underweight.

Wolff then added: «If the stewards deem it to be a breach of regulations, then it was what it is.

«We have to learn from that and as a team, there’s more positives today obviously for George, but that’s a massive blow to a driver whose childhood dream is to be winning these races that it’s probably taken away.

«But he’s gonna win many more.»

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Once Russell had been disqualified for breaching Article 4.1 of F1’s technical rules regarding minimum car weight and Hamilton was promoted to the win, Mercedes released a statement on Wolff’s behalf.

«We have to take our disqualification on the chin,» this read. «We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it.

«We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong. To lose a 1-2 is frustrating and we can only apologise to George, who drove such a strong race.

«Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.

«Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend.

«We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies. Only a few months ago, that would have been inconceivable.

«We head into the summer break having won three of the past four races. We will look to come back after shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory.»

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Russell felt on «verge of getting knocked out» before British GP pole

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George Russell feared he was set for an early Formula 1 qualifying elimination before securing pole for the British Grand Prix, and felt his car came alive in Q3.

Both Mercedes drivers had brief flirtations with the elimination zone across the opening phases of qualifying at Silverstone, but managed to haul themselves into the final shootout for pole.

Russell said that this was where the performance of his W15 ratcheted up, although he admitted that it was «the most pressure I’ve ever felt in a qualifying session» as he felt his confidence being knocked by the first phases.

Nonetheless, Russell led the way after the opening flurry of laps in qualifying; Lewis Hamilton overcame his team-mate’s benchmark on his second lap, but the younger Briton returned the favour to clinch his second pole of the season.

«This is definitely one of the best feelings I’ve ever had on a Saturday afternoon and the car was just insane when we went out in Q3, it just really came alive,» Russell said. «It was one of the best feelings I’ve had driving this circuit — crossing the line with my name in P1.

«And then with both of us on the front row, we couldn’t have even dreamed of that after the first three or four races.

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

«In Q3, we really turned it up, because Q1 and Q2 were very, very challenging. I felt like I was about to get knocked out at various points. The track was improving every single lap.

«And probably going into Q3 was the most pressure I’ve ever felt in a qualifying session because the whole Q1 and Q2 runs, it felt like I was on the verge of getting knocked out every single occasion.

«I wasn’t feeling that confident with myself, but as soon as I went through Turn 1 and Turn 2 in Q3 I felt good and managed to do the laps.»

Russell was slower in the first sector of his pole lap, but noted the point at which it began to improve to yield the ultimate two-tenth improvement.

He added that, although Mercedes was expecting to lose «a tenth or two» to second-row occupiers Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, weather would leave a question mark upon Sunday’s race with more rain forecast.

«From Turn 6 to Turn 9, I gained a lot; Turn 6 and 7 was mega, a big headwind through there so I braked really late and could just carry the speed through the corners. But it was just on rails, the car. I just felt so confident in it.

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«I think realistically we know we’ve got a tenth or two behind Lando and Max, but I think we’ve got a good fight on our hands.

«The weather’s going to play a huge part in that; it’s been raining and drying up throughout the last couple of days. There’s a bit of rain on the forecast tomorrow, we’re probably on course for another Montreal-style race.»



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How Hamilton’s data helped Russell snatch Canada F1 pole

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Hamilton had looked well on top of things in final practice in Montreal, as he ended Saturday morning’s session nearly fourth-tenths clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Russell.

And it was that pace advantage that prompted Russell to dig a bit deeper into what Hamilton was doing.

Having gone through his data to better understand things, he claimed what he learned helped him secure the top spot, as his team-mate ultimately ended up seventh.

“This morning Lewis was absolutely flying and he was well ahead of me,” explained Russell after taking pole position. “I had to look a lot into his data to try to understand what he was doing differently. And, to be honest, that helped me a huge amount.

“So ahead of this qualifying, I’m just so glad that we could pull it off, because I feel like we really deserve all of this hard work we’ve been putting in, and the car has been feeling awesome this weekend.”

Mercedes’ first pole position since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix has come in the wake of it introducing a new front wing to help improve the balance shift between high- and low-speed corners.

Russell admitted that the result had delivered a huge lift for the entire squad, which has struggled to make progress with the current generation of ground-effect cars.

“Such a buzz,” said Russell. “It’s been a while since we’ve experienced this feeling. There is so much hard work going on behind the scenes back at Brackley and Brixworth and it’s been a little while to be able to sort of get back in the fight. It almost felt like all of that hard work hasn’t been paying off.”

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, celebrates in Parc Ferme

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, celebrates in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

He added: “I think we struggled a lot with understeer before. Last year, we had a lot of oversteer, and we’ve sort of been just trying to find the halfway house between what we had last year and what we had this year. And it feels like we’re sort of dialling in that sweet spot right now.

“It feels like it’s something we’ve been saying for a long time, in all honesty. But really, there is a sense of relief to actually see it translate into pole position.”

Russell’s pole position came despite him setting exactly the same time as world champion Max Verstappen. The Briton got the top spot, however, because he logged his lap first.

Verstappen believed that second was nothing to be upset about, after fearing that Mercedes was pretty clear at the front based on its pace in the early stages of qualifying.

“Probably Q3 was the weakest of the sessions for Mercedes,” said the Dutchman. “So being on the exact same lap time, it’s great.

“In hindsight, I think, when you look at their pure pace, I take second, because after Q2 I saw their lap times and I was like, there is no way that I can do something like that.

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, with Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, in Parc Ferme

Pole man George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, with Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“Of course, there was a little bit of rain in between, like a few spits here and there, but I think overall just the weekend was, again, a bit messy from our side, just too many little issues.

“From there onwards we tried to, of course, find the best possible balance with the car. I think we did get a decent balance in qualifying, and I was quite happy with it, but just we need to be able to just have cleaner weekends without issues, and that will help a bit as well.”



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Why Russell got new Mercedes F1 front wing over Hamilton in Monaco

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Speaking about the 0.078-second gap between them as they lined up fifth and seventh, Hamilton was eager to suggest that he never had any realistic chance of beating Russell because of their different-specification cars.

“The team has worked really hard back at the factory to bring an upgrade in the last two races and also an upgrade this weekend — but we only had one, which George has,” he told Sky. “I anticipated it would be difficult to outqualify George because he has the upgraded component.

“Once we get to qualifying, I don’t understand. I already know automatically that I’m going to lose two-tenths going into qualifying.

“That’s definitely frustrating and it’s something that I don’t really have an answer for at the moment. I’m not driving any different. The laps are really great. Just, I don’t know.”

Hamilton went on to suggest that he did not expect to ever outqualify Russell again this season, and then later told the written media that he did not know what was happening to his car on Saturdays.

“Since the start of qualifying, it’s like… I don’t know if it’s a turn-down or something of performance,” he said. “But performance comes away from my car, for some reason. So, a bit frustrating that we’re only seventh.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Hamilton’s remarks could be interpreted as a hint that things were not entirely equal at Mercedes – and perhaps even that Russell was being given preferential treatment because he is the one who had the wing.

After all, Russell is remaining with the team next year while Hamilton has already decided to move on and join Ferrari.

However, the reality of how Mercedes chose which driver ran the wing was not a matter of picking one over the other.

Instead, Autosport understands that, with the team aware it would have only one version of the wing, the option of running the new wing was given to both drivers and it emerged that Hamilton made clear that he preferred not to go with it.

Firstly, there was the desire to have a more stable platform throughout practice and qualifying so he could build up his confidence around the track – rather than risk switching around configurations.

Plus, with the new wing being a different specification to the version run so far this season, there was an added risk from heading into qualifying with no spare.

With parc ferme rules in place, if the wing had been damaged in an incident, then a switch to revert to the other specification would have meant a breach of these regulations – and a pitlane start.

While Hamilton may have been a bit frustrated by knowing that he had a bit of a disadvantage this weekend, the team is at least sure things will be totally equal next time out in Canada.

As Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “We’ll have that on both cars for the next race in Montreal.”



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Mercedes locked in F1 «battle of fine margins»

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The German manufacturer has endured a bruising start to the 2024 season, with it yet to finish on the podium and currently lying in fourth in the constructors’ championship – just one point ahead of Aston Martin.

But while on paper its situation does not look promising, Russell thinks that Mercedes’ fate has been exacerbated by tiny elements – and a relatively minor uplift in pace would change it dramatically.

“I think small things make a big difference to the overall result,” said Russell ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

“I think an extra tenth or two in qualifying and you are four positions higher on the grid. We wouldn’t [in Japan] have then made the bold choice of starting on the hard, which, with the information we had at the time, was absolutely the correct decision. The race would have panned out very, very differently.

“We’re in a battle of fine margins right now. We’ve been on the wrong end of that for the past few race weekends, at two circuits that I don’t think really suit the characteristics of that car.”

With the Mercedes W15 struggling against the opposition in high-speed corners, its weakness has been exposed at recent venues like Jeddah, Australia and Suzuka.

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

That is why Russell sees this weekend’s Chinese GP as perhaps a better indicator of Mercedes’ potential, with its profile being more geared towards medium- and low-speed corners.

“I think this will be a really good test this weekend to see where we do fall out, compared to McLaren as well,” he explained.

“They seem to be exceptionally strong in the high-speed corners and a bit weak in the low-speed corners. There is a lot more potential to be shown. I don’t think we have optimised the car and its set-up in the last couple of races. That’s what we’re homing in on.”

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Team-mate Lewis Hamilton said Mercedes would not be running any upgrades in Shanghai this weekend but was carrying forward some important set-up lessons that it uncovered in Japan.

“Nothing has changed with our car, so it’s going to be the same car this weekend,” he said. “But we understand it a little bit more.

“Looking at the last weekend, we did make improvements. So, if we could go back, we would have done things differently, and that is the benefit of hindsight and experience.

“We will try and bring that here this weekend and see if we can implement some of those changes that we would have perhaps done further in Suzuka. Hopefully that can find us a bit of performance.”



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Not penalising Alonso for Melbourne F1 crash would’ve opened a «can of worms»

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The F1 pack has been quizzed extensively about the incident late in the race last time out in Melbourne as this weekend’s Suzuka race gets underway, with a notable split in opinions amongst the racing cohort.

Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg “wasn’t very impressed with Fernando’s tactics”, while Sauber racers Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu both called the decision to penalise the Spaniard “harsh”.

Russell aired his views in the pre-event press conference in Japan, where he made the case that if the FIA stewards had not penalised Alonso, such tactics might have started appearing in different F1 racing scenarios and possibly even developed into dangerous situations in junior single-seater competition.

“I think it was obviously a strange situation that happened last week,” said Russell.

“As I said at the time, [I was] totally caught by surprise.

“I was actually looking at the steering wheel making a switch change on the straight, which we all do across the lap, and when I looked up I was in Fernando’s gearbox and it was too late and then next thing I know I was in the wall.

“So, I think if it were not to have been penalised, it would’ve really opened up a can of worms for the rest of the season and in junior categories, saying, ‘are you allowed to brake in a straight, are you allowed to slow down, change gear, accelerate, do something semi-erratic?’

“I don’t take anything personally with what happened with Fernando and it probably had bigger consequences than it should have.

“But if it went unpenalised, can you just brake in the middle of the straight? I don’t know.”

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

When asked by Autosport for his thoughts on the ethics of tactics such as Alonso deployed, which have long been considered a legitimate part of racing in many quarters, Russell replied: “What you say is absolutely correct – every driver is open to change their line, brake earlier, power through the corner, do whatever.

“[But] when we start braking in the middle of the straight, downshifting, accelerating, upshifting again, then braking again for a corner, I think that goes beyond the realms of adjusting your line.

“And, as I said, I was actually looking at my steering wheel in that straight – as I’ve done every single lap prior.

“And when I looked up 100m before the corner, I realised I was right behind Fernando, rather than the half a second that I was.

“We’ve got so many duties to take care of when we’re driving – going around the race track, changing all the settings on the steering wheel, making sure you’re in the right engine mode, taking care of the tyres, talking to your engineer, managing the deltas on your steering wheel when it’s an in-lap, out-lap, safety car – whatever it may be.

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“And if you add into the mix that you’re allowed to brake in the middle of the straight to gain or get a tactical advantage, I think that is maybe one step too far.

“And the same when we talk about moving down the straight to get out of the slipstream.

“There was lot of talk about that in the past. It’s not overly dangerous, but it has a concertina effect. If everybody is moving around and if suddenly you brake test and there are 10 cars behind, it probably has a greater effect by the 10th driver than it does for the first driver behind.

“So, as I said, I don’t think what Fernando did was extraordinarily dangerous, but it will open a can of worms if it wasn’t penalised.”

The fallout from the incident is set to be discussed between officials and the drivers at the Suzuka driver’s meeting post-practice on Friday.

The location of Russell’s crash at Albert Park will also be a key point of order in that meeting.



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