George Russell rues the one-stop races after procession in F1 US GP, but defends Pirelli for the robust tyres, which allows them to push to the limit.
It wasn’t the start that Mercedes’ Russell wanted in F1 US GP where he got behind Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, which cost him two places to Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. Despite the push to get through the Australian early on, the Brit couldn’t push through in the fight for fifth.
In hindsight Mercedes chief Toto Wolff thought the undercut would have worked to try and clear Piastri at least, but it is always thoughtful after the grand prix. “I made a good start but when Max covered Lando, I thought the normal thing to do would be for him to go to the outside to protect his position,” said Russell to media. “And in turn, he didn’t.
“He just stayed behind Max, he got overtaken, and it blocked me in, and I got overtaken. So that was quite frustrating, but I had the feeling before the race, wherever you finish Turn 1 is where you’re going to finish and unfortunately, this turned out to be the case. If I somehow came out to P4 through Charles’ strategy, maybe I could have finished P3.
“But the thing is, now, when there’s no tyre degradation, there’s no tyre delta between the fastest car and the slowest car, and top six, there’s maybe two tenths or three tenths. And every track we go to, you need at least half a second to overtake, so that’s why you’re not seeing any overtakes. And I don’t remember the last two-stop race, to be honest.
“All of the races recently been one stops, and even from a sprint race yesterday, the Ferrari couldn’t overtake Carlos. Years ago, that would not have been the case. I don’t really know, I think it’s just lack of tyre deg,” summed up Russell, who defended Pirelli, even though he remarked about one-stop races. He feels they have done a good job in making the tyres robust where drivers can push.
But since the cars are so evenly matched, it is difficult to overtake plus the dirty air effect has increased as the years have gone by. “I think Pirelli get a hard time,” continued Russell. “No matter what, there’s lots of tyre degradation. People say ‘it’s not real. The drivers can’t push. We have to manage. We don’t like that.’ Then, when there’s no tyre degradation, we say it’s a boring race.
“They don’t seem to be able to win in any case. So, realistically, you want a tyre that you can push full gas, but it doesn’t go the whole race. If you could choose the tyre, it’s a tyre you go flat out, but after 15 laps, it falls off a cliff, and you have to do a two or three stop race. Ideally, the soft tyre there’s 12 laps, the medium tyre there’s 15 laps, and the hard tyre there’s 20 laps, and then it falls off the cliff.
“But that is a lot easier said than done. As I said, Pirelli get a very hard time. They do their best, and they have given us a substantially better tyre. This tyre is very good, but it causes bad racing,” summed up Russell, as team boss Wolff defended the situation while alluding to the fact that not every F1 race can be as exciting, taking the example of football.
As noted about, he spilled on the strategy side as well. “Not every football game, not every Formula One race can be super exciting,” said Wolff. “There are races that can be a little bit dull, because the layout of the circuit, the performance, the small performance differences between cars, and all of that, the tyres, everything interacts. So that’s why I think we had a race today that was really bad.
“That played the overarching role for not great overtaking. But I think our car had the pace, but the moment you’re just behind anybody else in the dirty air, there’s no way to overtake. It was always risky to take the soft to the end. And in hindsight, yeah, it would have been better to maybe pit a lap earlier.
“And we said to the opposite, so we were prepared to pit at that stage, but then it was too late, and the undercut would have brought us a position. P5, which would have been nice, maximum achievable today. So this P6 doesn’t change the world in terms of points, yeah, I think there was a scope. But the hindsight,” summed up Russell.
Here’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli on Carlos Sainz incident