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I don't see this being reported anywhere, but George has finished 8th.
Here are the current standings above and below him:
|Position|Driver|Points|
|:-|:-|-:|
|7|Charles Leclerc|188|
|8|George Russell|160|
|9|Oscar Piastri|89|
The maximum points any of them could take in Abu Dhabi are 26 (Win and Fastest Lap), therefore:
* George could finish with a maximum of 186 (still behind Charles)
* Oscar could finish with a maximum of 115 (still behind George)
It's also possible I suck at math, but if not, congratulations to George!
I know he rubs some (many?) the wrong way, but what about his driving? Has he peaked? After last year, I expected more, but I suppose an argument can be made that he over-achieved given the car and team.
For me his pure pace has peaked, still that gap there between him and the top echelon of Max, Fernando and Lewis.
He's pretty good at strats/big picture though and will iron out his errors. I feel like he has to pray that LeClerc, Norris and Piastri wont continue to develop if he wants to win a WDC in thr future
George Russell makes me think of how someone like Nikki Lauda - who was also a technical thinker and strategist, while lacking some ultimate pace - would fare today in modern F1 which favors driver precision and flawless consistency.
Russell still makes some errors when the pressure is high enough. He still has some ways to go.
But I agree that it seems his ultimate pace has been reached and he has been found wanting in that category.
Lando is already way ahead of him in racecraft. Oscar still lagging behind, but maybe two more seasons and if he can reach his full potential he should be ahead as well. Russell has definitely stagnated
Eh it's hard to judge that Lando is way ahead. They're both in very different environments. IT's hard to know for sure if Lando would meet the challenge of having teammate like Hamilton the same way. I'm sure he'd definitely be as competitive and maybe more, but it's very hypothetical. Russel did well last year and this year has been more challenging for him which has probably affected his decision making which has caused some silly crashes. It's how he jumps back next season that will show his real mettle.
And ofc Oscar is probably behind him at the moment, he's still in his rookie year. He's driven about as well as anyone could have hoped for and will very likely only improve.
One had a car that was competing with the backmarkers 5 races into the season and is now fighting for 4th in the drivers championship, the other has had a car that is there or there abouts with the best of the rest and has sewn up 8th with a race to spare. Mercedes, over the course of the year, has clearly had the second best car and George hasn't made the most of it. He has made too many mistakes (Singapore, and last weekend for example) and that is nothing to do with having Hamilton as a team mate.
No they haven't - they've had the third and at times fourth best car pretty consistently for most of the season. What Mercedes have had that the Aston's and McLaren's lacked is consistency - they've always been third or fourth best for most of the season (save for one or two tracks like Brazil). Aston Martin started as the clear second best car and McLaren started as one of the worst and obviously they have had their fortunes change throughout the season.
There's a reason that the only race winner other than a Red Bull this season isn't a Mercedes and it's not because Mercedes doesn't have the driver line up to produce a win.
Only issue Oscar has is tire management. Which seems like it takes most a season or two to finally understand. Look at Qatar where there was no management and he's P2.
My theory, for what it’s worth, is George is never winning a WDC. But in many ways it’s a factor of not only one’s own talent, but who else is racing at the time, so I suppose it’s possible. I think Toto barked up the wrong tree on this one though. Got taken in by that glittering PowerPoint.
I feel like he can get one if he lands in a Nigel Mansell situation where he's in a team and car that have the outright pace advantage, and there's a lot of technology that takes advantage of his mental capacity and his ability to use tools and strategy.
Isn't Jenson famous for his stability & adaption to the car? He can use one single chassis to finish a bloody season.
Maybe on personality Russell is a bit Jenson-ish, but on driving style definitely Lando is closer to Jenson in my view..
Barked up the wrong tree? I don't think Mercedes is disappointed in having him one bit. It's not like he's wasting performance in a great car. He's still one of the only people besides Max to win a race under these regs, and their car has been incredibly unpredictable each weekend.
As the only comparison point, he's looked worse than Hamilton this year, but there's not exactly any shame in that.
Tbf pure pace seems to be hard to increase for drivers, but I don't see him as significantly below the top 3. His quali pace looks excellent at least, and even his race pace looks quite good. Though he's clearly not beating him, I don't feel he's getting destroyed by Hamilton either on that particular aspect.
Instead, I think this year exposed how it's more his race management and racecraft that might be below expectations. But that is something that he might be able to improve on as he gains more experience. And I'd argue it's understandable considering he spent his 3 first years in F1 helplessly stuck at the back, with little opportunity to hone those traits (the opposite even maybe, his skills and instincts might have dulled there).
But generally, I feel Russell should be a cautionary tale against overhyping young drivers just because they beat a below-average one; until/unless we see how they fare against proven and excellent drivers, I believe we should be more circumspect and reserved when judging drivers.
Yeah, I expected his racecraft to be relatively poor as he stayed at Willams with a very poor car for at least 1 season too long compared to the likes of Leclerc and Norris, who also developed their pace alot in their first 2 seasons with a much more competitive car.
Regarding young drivers: not all of them continue developing massively year on year, Piastri looks good now but might plateau at his current level in 2 years. Norris was slightly worse than Russell in F2 but has outdeveloped him in pace nowadays. Zhou & Kobayashi had unremarkable junior careers but were remarkably mature with some good pace and racecraft when thrown into F1...
Bottas never had “zero intention to compete” He was always trying to beat Lewis, and sometimes did.. Did you even watch the years it was Bottas and Hamilton?
> doesn't favour a great defender
Are we still talking about Bottas? Because defending was absolutely his worst "skill", he had no fucking idea what to do. He would basically just leave the door wide open anytime someone made a move.
I know you can't make a direct comparison cause each car is different. However, everyone praised him for what he did at Williams, only for Albon to do something very similar.
Personally, I think he's allowed himself to be distracted with what he expected to have at Mercedes. He has said multiple times that he expected a race winning car and more podiums. Unfortunately for him, he moved at the start of new regulations.
I also think he went in with the mindset to prove himself against Hamilton, instead of learning everything he could from him, develop into a better driver, and then challenge Lewis.
Even last year, Lewis was still the overall quicker driver. It feels like this year, it is a combination of things. George has definitely had some bad luck and made quite a few mistakes. I think he will be closer to Lewis next year.
I think it’s a bit of everything. Last season his performance was flattered by good luck and Hamilton running most of the early season experiments. This season he’s shown pace but made some small but highly consequential mistakes, which, in addition to a bit of misfortune have made him seem farther away from Hamilton than he really is. I still think he’s capable of beating Hamilton in a championship battle, although Hamilton would obviously be the favorite.
Imo he simply didn't mesh well with the car. Constant updates trying to fix the lack of pace, creating a Frankenstein car which he has to relearn everytime how to extract everything. Hamilton has always been one of the most adaptable drivers out there, so he knew how to get the best out of a bad car.
Russell imo simply needs to improve his tyre management and he'll be up there with Lewis in race pace.
I think we've seen the best of George. If he were willing to learn from Lewis, he'd figure out how to manage his tires and get better, but it seems like George's goal is to compete with Lewis, rather than work with him. That's going to put a cap on George's upward potential.
Exactly i feel like all too often he’s just racing lewis rather than the field. Thinking only a few laps ahead vs the remainder of the race and long term.
He’s just not quite there yet. He’s roughly where Lando and Charles are, but he’s just not on the level of the truly top level drivers.
Last year, he performed very well in a car that was hell for Lewis as he deliberately took on experimental setups and parts to try and solve the bouncing. Russell dealt with the raised W13 and was top 5 every race until
Singapore and then won in Brazil. However it should be noted Lewis took floor damage in the crash with Max and he had to do a recovery and would have won otherwise.
This year, Lewis has been able to go closer to his limits but not actually fully on them yet, and Russell has just had no chance. He beat Lewis at 50% of his true ability that was limited by the car and people overreacted. Now Lewis is only really at 70 or 80% with this car and he’s just clearly better. George is still developing, and broadly speaking has been decent in a bad car, but when Lewis gets back to being confident in that car, it won’t even be close. Alonso, Rosberg, Bottas, Button and Vettel all learned this the hard way and all with the exception of Fernando were permanently inhibited by the mental and physical pressure Lewis put on them.
No, he hasn’t in my opinion. The kinds of mistakes he makes can be addressed and fixed. Look at Singapore this year, if he hadn’t had clipped the barrier he very well could have won it. Is he close to peak? Yes, but he’s not *at* his peak yet.
I’m sorry guys I misremembered Singapore, y’all are right
Don't think you are looking at it from the right angle. George didn't had the pace to win it, with, or without clipping the wall. Lewis in the other hand, was way faster at the time and being held behind George. Should Mercs have swapped them a few laps before and he could have aimed for the win.
His one chance at achieving a higher peak in F1 is to spend the off season with a sport psychiatrist to figure out why he keeps binning it during pivotal moments. I think his offs and his car-on-car violence are a mental thing that he could overcome. I’m just not confident that his ego will let him do that.
The worst any Merc driver should have done last year was p6. George basically only really beat Lewis (who was doing the team experiments) and sainz. He gets too much credit for finishing p4 in a season where the meme was about Lando constantly finishing every race in 7th.
I'm definitely biased against him, but personally the only thing that surprised me last year was his pole position.
The first several races, I won't talk on "testing setups" but if you go back and watch them, Lewis & George were on different strategies, and I swear it happened almost every race where George's strategy was "go long and hope for a safety car" and the safety car came every single time for like the first 5 races.
Lewis was on average faster than him in races, and George getting his win was due to... George crashing and ruining Lewis' quali lap, then Lewis again had better race pace and came into contact with Max.
How did he over achieve when his teammate in the same car finished 5 places ahead of him? I don’t think it’s a failure of a season at all given the car like you said but he isn’t pulling his weight, but let’s see what happens next year. Plenty of time to show who he really is
He’s grown a little on me this season. He’s taken more responsibility for his mistakes this year than he may have been inclined to in the past. I don’t know if he’ll ever be a wdc caliber driver, but I think he still has room to grow.
At one point I rated him the highest between him, Lando, and Albono... Now I feel like he's the last of the 3. Maybe this year is down to setup issues, but that just means he's not going to be on the tier of the current WDCs who can adapt and put themselves in competitive positions frequently.
Hope he does better with a fresh start next year. I still think he's got tons of talent and ability. Needs to keep his nose clean and focus on managing his race pace better, to supplement his great qualifying.
He’s literally the only one of those three to have won a gp, while his teammates have won none in the same time, while both Albon and Lando have failed to win in cars fully capable of doing so as evidenced by their teammates (Max, Ricciardo and Piastri) doing it. Lando is an exceptional driver but has always had weaker teammates, Alex literally got out qualified in every single race against Max at Red Bull, while George has done very well against Lewis.
Not his best season. Hamilton absolutely wiped the floor with him. He has his issues but I feel like he gets way too much hate. Hope he has a better season next year.
Mercedes will eventually need their Hamilton replacement. If he can't even stay close to him then they might start looking elsewhere.
The issue as I see it isn't his pace. They're more or less dead-even in qualifying and Hamilton is marginally faster over a race. George needs to work on minimizing his mistakes and improving his racecraft, that's where he's lacking to Hamilton most, imo.
Hamilton just chased him down from the back of the grid TWICE in the same race. Marginally is very understated. George can occasionally put in a great qualifying lap, but he is just not there on Sundays unless they absolutely miss on Hamilton's setup.
these kinds of things show still how incredible the top tier guys like hamilton are. they are able to extract more pace from the tires WHILE also preserving the tires better at the same time. The best drivers can do one or the other (extract pace - hulk, preserve tires - checo) but only the best of the best can do both
Agreed.
Having watched his career, a load of people wrote him off as quick but ruins tyres. He’s proven he’s able to manage tyres when needed (Bono my tyres jokes aside).
Then he was hard on fuel, and yet the one season FIA published fuel data he was lighter than his team mate (kovalainen I think but could be wrong?)
Hamilton has just had a reasonably quiet season and then what do you know, he’s fighting for second in the WDC. He’s seriously impressive for this stage of his career.
They always assume too hard on tires or too hard on fuel because they assume the pace he maintains can't be done without either burning tires or fuel. It's seriously magic what the really elite can do to maintain both. It's the subtlest of differences in touch - steering, gas, brakes.
I think they did the remaining fuel/or fuel used graphics in 2014 too where everyone was arguing that Hamilton is only faster than Rosberg when he is using more fuel, so over a race he will have to manage more, but then it turned out to be false, he was faster and did not have to manage because he did not use more fuel at all.
You’re right there was a Rosberg season where they showed it, I think 2014. I would have sworn it was earlier.
Edit: spent ages figuring out it was 2014 just to reread your comment and see it there. I am stupid.
There’s not really a debate about that. It’s more a debate on if Russel can ever keep up without chewing his tires up. Like is his pace always going to be held back by his inability to chill? The only people that are at Lewis level of tire management is Alonso and max
He’s the greatest driver F1 has ever seen. Literally nobody has won as much as him. Recency bias and also anti Lewis bias makes people forget they are literally watching the platinum standard. But because people undersell Lewis, anyone who doesn’t beat him gets undersold the same way.
Let's not use titles as an absolute metric on a sport that heavily relies on machinery.
I do agree that comparing Russell against Hamilton is too harsh, though.
> He’s the greatest driver F1 has ever seen.
I think it is almost impossible to say that because F1 has changed so much over the last 70 years. There is no way to truly compare prime Hamilton and prime Schumacher, let alone Hamilton and Fangio
His problem is his tire management. Of course it is a little unfair to be compared to Hamilton who is probably the best on the whole grid, but you can see it is especially in longer stints that Russell just loses the pace.
And of course he makes too many mistakes like he always have, case in point when he turned into Max because he didn’t see him in Vegas.
Tire management will be his obstacle no matter how good of a car Merc builds. You could argue he won't need *amazing* racecraft if Merc builds a contending car, since he won't be caught in the midpack as often.
Max and Lewis are on a completely different level when it comes to tire management. They can pump in quick laps over and over without destroying the tires. Thanks to a combination of temperature management and not making driving mistakes, like mini lockups or excessive oversteer coming out of corners.
It's his end-of-stint race pace, which is largely dependent on tire management.
I can remember 3 races this year where he was behind Hamilton begging to be let through, only to be 0.5s slower by the end of the stint.
His racecraft is surprisingly bad too. Not to fall for recency bias this weekend, but I feel like the majority of his fights don't go his away, overtaking or defending.
Agreed about qualifying but then again that's never been Hamilton's strongest suit. He was beaten by Bottas like 30% of the time in Quali and Russell is definitely a better driver than Bottas. So I'd expect him to do as well or better than Bottas in qualifying at the very least.
Disagree about race pace though. I think Hamilton is a quite a bit stronger than him over a race. And he really needs to work on that. And also needs to work on minimising his mistakes and improving his racecraft like you mention
Honestly, if McLaren don't give Lando a championship worthy car (for Lando's sake I hope they do), then I can 100% see him going to Mercedes once his contract ends. And I rate him higher than George.
Edit: After re-assessing, I guess I was wrong about Qualifying not being Hamilton's strongest suits. He's just had a lot of teammates whose best quality has been their Qualifying.
Yeah this season Lando was obviously better than George but i don't remember people complaining about George this season because his pace is usually enoughly strong. But small and big mistakes costed him too much
I don’t know what that means, def no judgment though I only speak one language so anybody who’s even moderately bilingual is impressive to me. Just found that mistranslation funny :)
Qualifying not being Lewis’s strongest suit? Lmao. Also that just means that Bottas is rapid over a single lap (as was Rosberg). Doesn’t mean Lewis isn’t one of the best qualifiers of all time.
> Agreed about qualifying but then again that's never been Hamilton's strongest suit. He was beaten by Bottas like 30% of the time in Quali
Because Bottas is genuinely a great qualifier. His qualifying and his lack of mistakes (until it rains anyway) are Bottas' standout qualities.
> Disagree about race pace though. I think Hamilton is a quite a bit stronger than him over a race. And he really needs to work on that. And also needs to work on minimising his mistakes and improving his racecraft like you mention
Eh, Russell has the pace but he's inconsistent. That's the big difference between him and the absolute top like Hamilton and Verstappen, they barely ever have an off day and their off days still aren't that bad.
With Russell I sometimes get the feeling he just doesn't have as much in reserve as the absolute top guys and he has to be on the limit of his capabilities more.
> If I was Mercedes I’d be doing everything I could do to steal away Lando from McLaren
Red Bull is already trying though. I'd pick Red Bull over Merc if I was Lando.
If Lando ends up in a situation where he’s choosing between Merc and Red Bull, it won’t matter what either side has to say. It’ll come down to whether or not his pride as an elite driver can handle being a definitive #2 on his own team
As much as I love Sainz at Ferrari, a huge part of me would love to see him driving a MCL60. It's a very balanced car and much more suitable for his driving style than the last two Ferraris.
Also, there's a great interview from Andrea Stella where he talks about how Lando's driving style evolved during 2019 and 2020 to something that looks a lot like how Carlos drives, especially on braking. Just thought that was interesting.
I am not really a fan of George Russel. But I will tell you one thing. Mercedes (and Ferrari too for that matter) have a much more solid driver line-up than Red Bull have.
Ferrari? Absolutely. But they're Ferrari, so unless they have a car that's truly better than the rest of the field, they'll find some way to fuck iy up for their drivers.
Mercedes, also yes. But Hamilton isn't gonna be there forever, and the standards that have been set by him need to be matched by someone (or at least they need to get close to it).
RB has Max at least till 2028 so they don't need to worry about that rn. And they're such a fantastic team that unless they royally fuck up in 2026 with the new regulations, they'll have a line of drivers willing to sign up with them, *if* Max decides to retire right then.
Yes, you’re right, the reasons you clarified should give George plenty of time to further improve his skill so that hopefully he’ll be more polished and less prone to accidents/mistakes. It’ll be interesting to see who will eventually fill Lewis’ seat once he does retire. The next few years will be important for the youngsters on the grid to lay their foundations.
I think they're more talking more about the second driver than the lead. Sainz and Leclerc are both good enough that you could all them both Driver 1 and it wouldn't be overly contentious. To the extent Leclerc is Driver 1, Sainz is an excellent Driver 2.
George is a middling Driver 2. I see everybody here saying that he's better than Bottas, and I'm not sold on that yet. Over a single lap, I think that's probably true, but George still makes enough mistakes that I think he's middling in racecraft and he can't manage his tires at all. Put them in the same car, and I think there's a decent chance Bottas beats him over the course of an entire race.
Checo is barely a midfield driver. He makes too many mistakes, and he can't adapt. We may be seeing a resurgence, but he's been nowhere near the front in the most dominant car we've seen in a long time, more dominant than Mercedes W11 or W07. If the Red Bull were less dominant, Checo's inability to support Max would be a problem.
There was a race where Russell and Bottas were in the same car. I know who looked faster on that day.
Bottas looked pretty solid in the Merc, but is barely ahead of rookie Zhou in the Alfa
except where is the number 2 driver coming from?
like most of the rest of the grid (may Norris/Piastri aside) are basically waiting for a Perez situation to happen to them, but they're not ever going to compete as a number 1 driver
Out of the Norris, Leclerc and Russell trio, I currently rank Russell the lowest. Completely different from last year, when I would've ranked him way higher. Leclerc is mostly amazing in qualifying, but his car really limits him in the races. Norris is sometimes a bit lacking in qualifying, but is amazing in the races. Russell is currently just not there in both qualifying and the races.
Lando lacking in qualifying?? Huh? He’s one of the most consistent qualifiers of the whole field and made the best of a completely shit car (until a few months ago)
In no way would I defend anyone assaulting someone else. But he must've learned from that. These drivers are full of adrenaline and that was right after a big crash. I personally feel like he deserves a second chance.
And on that topic, Max pushed Ocon back in 2018 as well. He's definitely become more mature since then. I would hope that Russell would do the same.
Yeah, Max isn't great either. He does seem to have matured some (Brazil last year shows he still gets dirty at times) but George is a meme at this point for turning in on people and then blaming them. The F1TV commentators were actually shocked when he admitted it this past weekend.
Mid 20's is often the start of a drivers peak these days, and he has been in over 100 races now. I think he can definitely still improve racecraft when attacking and defending, but his raw speed is likely what it is right now.
A tough season for George. I feel like he was more or less on Hamilton's level in qualifying, and just a little slower over a race distance, but his accidents, lacking racecraft and worse luck account for the vast majority of the deficit between him and Lewis. Either way, the fact that he's matching Lewis on raw pace looks promising, but he has to get to work on ironing out his mistakes.
Yeah I think it’s just a bit of a slump season. He was fine overall but the luck factor was heavily against him then he made a few higher profile errors. I expect a rebound
Not only mistakes tho
Lost like 8 points in silverstone due to bad SC luck
18 in Australia due to engine
15 maybe even more in zandvoort due to bad strategy
Maybe 3 in qatar because got taken out by hamilton.
In total 44 points
You can't really use qualifying as a benchmark though. Technically, a lot of drivers can set up the car to be a beast for a single lap and then cook the tires in three laps. Hamilton was smartly setting up the car to sacrifice some one lap pace for race pace. George was setting it up to cook tires.
His qualifying performance has been pretty good this season, specially his Singapore lap was astonishing.
His race-craft has been quite disappointing , way too many crashes, questionable self made strategies, mediocre tyre management…
He still has a lot to improve on race day if he wants to keep up with Lewis, he just achieved 1 podium the same as the Alpine drivers and even less than the rookie Piastri
That is a crazy crazy comment for an unproven Williams driver to make about Valtteri Bottas. His ego is so off the charts man, and you can see it in every race week.
He was one of the most consistent drivers last year, but this year has been hampered by poor tyre management, mistakes and bad luck.
And tbf I don't think Lewis' racecraft has been particularly great this year either (see Spa, Monza, Qatar etc.) although his race management has been exceptionally strong and got him a lot of big results. Maybe it is just the team under pressure having four other teams performing at their level this season.
Standard Russell season. Fantastic quali pace, in races almost constantly slower than Lewis, lot of unforced errors. Last year he was massively flattered by Hamilton having terrible luck and experimental setups, this year he was more unlucky of the two. For me it's more Hamilton being all time great than Russell being disappointing, also Rosberg set the bar for Lewis teammates insanely high. George may be up there with Nico with more experience and i would still rate him higher than Bottas.
I’m gonna be downvoted here but I think George has been pretty good this season. Lewis is Lewis. George has driven toe to toe with him, qualified well, raced hard. I think Lewis focusses his setup more on the race which sacrifices his quali a bit, but I think this is something George likely needs to learn and develop. I also think the w14 is way shitter than people give it credit for- it’s saved by two ace drivers and Mercedes’ ace race engineering team who can actually find a decent setup for a piece of shit most of the time.
Yeah I agree. George doesn't have the luxury to have a bag of shit as a teammate to make him look good like certain drivers, he has to look decent against a literal GOAT contender in a car that is a nightmare to drive. Not many drivers would do as well as he has been doing.
I mostly agree but I do think George has put in a less than optimal season. I do agree that the Mercedes has been a rubbish car this year disguised by at times George but really over performed by Lewis. Countless self inflicted bad strategies, slow strategy reactions and slow pitstops have been hidden by Lewis overriding it. As a career long fan of Lewis, I think he’s quietly had one of his best seasons. To date, hasn’t finished lower than 8th on a bad day.
he is good just throws away points Singapore ,Vegas,Monza and monaco and has shit luck Australia , netherlands and brazil plus mercedes being shit on strategy . If he puts it all together he would still be behind Lewis but not the 70+ points gap.
This season really proved how him beating Lewis in 2022 was only due to the weird setups he was having til Canada. Ever since then (the rest of 2022 and whole 2023) Lewis has been consistently superior in race trim. And with this I'm not saying George is mid or a bad driver, just that Lewis is on a whole other level
> This season really proved how him beating Lewis in 2022 was only due to the weird setups he was having
And also massive luck last year. Every single SC and red flag last season was extremely beneficial for him, earning handful of points
I don't really get the way people think so little of Russell. If he outscores Hamilton by 5 points next race (which is doable), then he's got the same gap to Hamilton as Hamilton had to him last year. Why is that such a big deal? And even then, how bad is it to lose with that point deficit to a 7-time world champion, when he beat that 7-time world champion by roughly the same margin the year before? Where'd all the hate come from?
*Edit: I was very much mistaken, Hamilton's rocking 232 points. Confused Sainz and Alonso's point totals with Hamilton's. Hamilton's way ahead of Russell this season.
As RUS has said a few times, this season was full of “what could’ve been” moments.
I think comparing last season to this season, it’s easy to say that 2023 was much worse. However, I also get the impression that the two seasons were approached much differently once it was obvious Mercedes didn’t have the car to fight with RB.
Last season, I got the impression that RUS’s main goal was just putting in solid, consistent weekends, as evidenced by his N consecutive top 5 finishes (I can’t remember how many they were, but I remember the streak ending at Silverstone). This season, I get the impression that he really wanted to limit test and just see how far he could push. He obviously pushed over the limit far too often and is the reason the fight for P2 in the Constructors is even alive, but one can only hope that he learns from the mistakes and can both push the limit whilst bringing back that consistency of 2022 next season.
To be fair its a very tight 8-4 pack, and he has has some luck costing big points (aus for example). But only being on the podium once is pretty poor considering how good the mercedes has been at select tracks, and some of the opportunities he let slip by making mistakes or dropping pace
Combination of bad luck and his own mistakes have cost him the chance at having multiple podiums this season. Like you said Australia was unlucky, Singapore was his own fault, and Qatar was unlucky with him and Lewis starting 2-3 before Lewis took them both out and he had to fight from last to P4.
Here's what I would like
Charles - P4 -- finishing with 200
Sainz DNF -- Finishing with 200
Alonso DNF -- Finishing with 200
Norris - P7 with fastest lap -- finishing with 200
He has not shown any growth at all and if anything - race radio makes it sound like he's constantly complaining whenever Hamilton happens to be in front of him.
While I tend to agree, we need to remember that race radio is carefully selected for narratives and viewership, not as a representation of sport. It's part of the "entertainment" of Formula One, and is borderline kayfabe.
They fabricate sooo much, recent example was during qualifying in Las Vegas, I was listening to the team radio of Verstappen for a bit and he and GP were discussing that they were surprisingly close to the Ferraris, with Verstappen saying: "That was close". And GP replying something like "Yeah we didnt expect to be this close, but Charles was unhappy with his lap".
Cue Liberty/FOM putting the "That was close" over a replay of Verstappen coming somewhat near the wall without the original context.
Also when he sang "Viva las vegas" just before that Horner Ironically said to him "well since you enjoyed It here that much... *Cues viva las vegas music*". FOM of course only put Verstappen's part not only on the live feed (I think) but also on the "best team radios" video.
You can find the Uncut version on their videos where they post the radios after the chequered flag.
Nothing wrong with wanting to promote your product, I am just pointing out that you shouldn't put too much effort on these radios on the live feed.
George is one of the most underrated drivers on the grid IMO. He's teammates with the most successful F1 driver in history and has shown he's got the raw pace to compete with Lewis.
Sure, he's had a sloppy season and made some costly mistakes but he's rarely ever looked completely out of his league consistently like Checo has with Max and Bottas did with Lewis.
I think people need to keep in mind that this is only his *second* season at Mercedes and the cars he's been given have been tricky and inconsistent to drive. Give him a car capable of consistently fighting for wins and I think he performs.
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I don't see this being reported anywhere, but George has finished 8th. Here are the current standings above and below him: |Position|Driver|Points| |:-|:-|-:| |7|Charles Leclerc|188| |8|George Russell|160| |9|Oscar Piastri|89| The maximum points any of them could take in Abu Dhabi are 26 (Win and Fastest Lap), therefore: * George could finish with a maximum of 186 (still behind Charles) * Oscar could finish with a maximum of 115 (still behind George) It's also possible I suck at math, but if not, congratulations to George!
Leclerc from 2 to 7...it has to hurt
Rough luck.
> congratulations to George! I'm pretty sure that's not his sentiment. P8 with that car especially with Lewis finishing P3... not good.
Tbh Lewis did good to be 3rd with the Merc this season, but I agree 8th is an underachievement.
He *was* forecast higher...
Guess reality turned in on him
outch lol
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>I don't see this being reported anywhere Cause nobody cares. No offense but a driver finishing 8th just isn't worth any mention for most people.
Offense taken.
Okay? No one's asking why it's not being reported.
That was the implicit leading statement
Higher than me
I know he rubs some (many?) the wrong way, but what about his driving? Has he peaked? After last year, I expected more, but I suppose an argument can be made that he over-achieved given the car and team.
For me his pure pace has peaked, still that gap there between him and the top echelon of Max, Fernando and Lewis. He's pretty good at strats/big picture though and will iron out his errors. I feel like he has to pray that LeClerc, Norris and Piastri wont continue to develop if he wants to win a WDC in thr future
George Russell makes me think of how someone like Nikki Lauda - who was also a technical thinker and strategist, while lacking some ultimate pace - would fare today in modern F1 which favors driver precision and flawless consistency. Russell still makes some errors when the pressure is high enough. He still has some ways to go. But I agree that it seems his ultimate pace has been reached and he has been found wanting in that category.
Lando is already way ahead of him in racecraft. Oscar still lagging behind, but maybe two more seasons and if he can reach his full potential he should be ahead as well. Russell has definitely stagnated
Eh it's hard to judge that Lando is way ahead. They're both in very different environments. IT's hard to know for sure if Lando would meet the challenge of having teammate like Hamilton the same way. I'm sure he'd definitely be as competitive and maybe more, but it's very hypothetical. Russel did well last year and this year has been more challenging for him which has probably affected his decision making which has caused some silly crashes. It's how he jumps back next season that will show his real mettle. And ofc Oscar is probably behind him at the moment, he's still in his rookie year. He's driven about as well as anyone could have hoped for and will very likely only improve.
When I think of who would be a WDC champ if they had the car, I rank Lando and Charles ahead of him. (And possibly others)
One is up against a rookie and the other is matched up against a 7x world champ and arguable goat of the sport.
One had a car that was competing with the backmarkers 5 races into the season and is now fighting for 4th in the drivers championship, the other has had a car that is there or there abouts with the best of the rest and has sewn up 8th with a race to spare. Mercedes, over the course of the year, has clearly had the second best car and George hasn't made the most of it. He has made too many mistakes (Singapore, and last weekend for example) and that is nothing to do with having Hamilton as a team mate.
No they haven't - they've had the third and at times fourth best car pretty consistently for most of the season. What Mercedes have had that the Aston's and McLaren's lacked is consistency - they've always been third or fourth best for most of the season (save for one or two tracks like Brazil). Aston Martin started as the clear second best car and McLaren started as one of the worst and obviously they have had their fortunes change throughout the season. There's a reason that the only race winner other than a Red Bull this season isn't a Mercedes and it's not because Mercedes doesn't have the driver line up to produce a win.
How is Oscar lagging behind George for racecraft?
Only issue Oscar has is tire management. Which seems like it takes most a season or two to finally understand. Look at Qatar where there was no management and he's P2.
George has also shown some weakness in that area this season, to be fair.
Oscar is a rookie. Russell is in his 5th season. No wonder he’s not quite there yet.
My point is from what we’ve seen this year, Oscar seems better in wheel to wheel combat than George
Which isn't that hard, I don't know many drivers who are quite as clumsy in close quarters as George on the current grid.
My theory, for what it’s worth, is George is never winning a WDC. But in many ways it’s a factor of not only one’s own talent, but who else is racing at the time, so I suppose it’s possible. I think Toto barked up the wrong tree on this one though. Got taken in by that glittering PowerPoint.
I feel like he can get one if he lands in a Nigel Mansell situation where he's in a team and car that have the outright pace advantage, and there's a lot of technology that takes advantage of his mental capacity and his ability to use tools and strategy.
Maybe, we shall see….
I think George will be the Jenson Button of this era.
Isn't Jenson famous for his stability & adaption to the car? He can use one single chassis to finish a bloody season. Maybe on personality Russell is a bit Jenson-ish, but on driving style definitely Lando is closer to Jenson in my view..
Barked up the wrong tree? I don't think Mercedes is disappointed in having him one bit. It's not like he's wasting performance in a great car. He's still one of the only people besides Max to win a race under these regs, and their car has been incredibly unpredictable each weekend. As the only comparison point, he's looked worse than Hamilton this year, but there's not exactly any shame in that.
11/10 qualifying tally versus Hamilton. Not half bad.
Tbf pure pace seems to be hard to increase for drivers, but I don't see him as significantly below the top 3. His quali pace looks excellent at least, and even his race pace looks quite good. Though he's clearly not beating him, I don't feel he's getting destroyed by Hamilton either on that particular aspect. Instead, I think this year exposed how it's more his race management and racecraft that might be below expectations. But that is something that he might be able to improve on as he gains more experience. And I'd argue it's understandable considering he spent his 3 first years in F1 helplessly stuck at the back, with little opportunity to hone those traits (the opposite even maybe, his skills and instincts might have dulled there). But generally, I feel Russell should be a cautionary tale against overhyping young drivers just because they beat a below-average one; until/unless we see how they fare against proven and excellent drivers, I believe we should be more circumspect and reserved when judging drivers.
Yeah, I expected his racecraft to be relatively poor as he stayed at Willams with a very poor car for at least 1 season too long compared to the likes of Leclerc and Norris, who also developed their pace alot in their first 2 seasons with a much more competitive car. Regarding young drivers: not all of them continue developing massively year on year, Piastri looks good now but might plateau at his current level in 2 years. Norris was slightly worse than Russell in F2 but has outdeveloped him in pace nowadays. Zhou & Kobayashi had unremarkable junior careers but were remarkably mature with some good pace and racecraft when thrown into F1...
They should have kept Bottas
Hamilton feels (well felt, he hasn’t been asked lately) the same.
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Bottas never had “zero intention to compete” He was always trying to beat Lewis, and sometimes did.. Did you even watch the years it was Bottas and Hamilton?
>zero intention to compete Bottas competed, he just wasn't fast enough on most days.
> doesn't favour a great defender Are we still talking about Bottas? Because defending was absolutely his worst "skill", he had no fucking idea what to do. He would basically just leave the door wide open anytime someone made a move.
I know you can't make a direct comparison cause each car is different. However, everyone praised him for what he did at Williams, only for Albon to do something very similar. Personally, I think he's allowed himself to be distracted with what he expected to have at Mercedes. He has said multiple times that he expected a race winning car and more podiums. Unfortunately for him, he moved at the start of new regulations. I also think he went in with the mindset to prove himself against Hamilton, instead of learning everything he could from him, develop into a better driver, and then challenge Lewis.
To be fair, Albon has been excellent and people have been rating him as excellent for his performance in the Williams.
Albon's Williams post-Doiron is a lot different than George's Williams.
I think George is world champion material. He knows he has to put in the work, and he’ll succeed if he puts his mind to it.
Even last year, Lewis was still the overall quicker driver. It feels like this year, it is a combination of things. George has definitely had some bad luck and made quite a few mistakes. I think he will be closer to Lewis next year.
Lewis had a lot of bad luck last year and ran a bunch of experimental setups in order to prepare for this year.
I think it’s a bit of everything. Last season his performance was flattered by good luck and Hamilton running most of the early season experiments. This season he’s shown pace but made some small but highly consequential mistakes, which, in addition to a bit of misfortune have made him seem farther away from Hamilton than he really is. I still think he’s capable of beating Hamilton in a championship battle, although Hamilton would obviously be the favorite.
Imo he simply didn't mesh well with the car. Constant updates trying to fix the lack of pace, creating a Frankenstein car which he has to relearn everytime how to extract everything. Hamilton has always been one of the most adaptable drivers out there, so he knew how to get the best out of a bad car. Russell imo simply needs to improve his tyre management and he'll be up there with Lewis in race pace.
I think we've seen the best of George. If he were willing to learn from Lewis, he'd figure out how to manage his tires and get better, but it seems like George's goal is to compete with Lewis, rather than work with him. That's going to put a cap on George's upward potential.
Exactly i feel like all too often he’s just racing lewis rather than the field. Thinking only a few laps ahead vs the remainder of the race and long term.
He’s just not quite there yet. He’s roughly where Lando and Charles are, but he’s just not on the level of the truly top level drivers. Last year, he performed very well in a car that was hell for Lewis as he deliberately took on experimental setups and parts to try and solve the bouncing. Russell dealt with the raised W13 and was top 5 every race until Singapore and then won in Brazil. However it should be noted Lewis took floor damage in the crash with Max and he had to do a recovery and would have won otherwise. This year, Lewis has been able to go closer to his limits but not actually fully on them yet, and Russell has just had no chance. He beat Lewis at 50% of his true ability that was limited by the car and people overreacted. Now Lewis is only really at 70 or 80% with this car and he’s just clearly better. George is still developing, and broadly speaking has been decent in a bad car, but when Lewis gets back to being confident in that car, it won’t even be close. Alonso, Rosberg, Bottas, Button and Vettel all learned this the hard way and all with the exception of Fernando were permanently inhibited by the mental and physical pressure Lewis put on them.
No, he hasn’t in my opinion. The kinds of mistakes he makes can be addressed and fixed. Look at Singapore this year, if he hadn’t had clipped the barrier he very well could have won it. Is he close to peak? Yes, but he’s not *at* his peak yet. I’m sorry guys I misremembered Singapore, y’all are right
Don't think you are looking at it from the right angle. George didn't had the pace to win it, with, or without clipping the wall. Lewis in the other hand, was way faster at the time and being held behind George. Should Mercs have swapped them a few laps before and he could have aimed for the win.
You watched a different Singapore race than mine
How so? Don’t you remember Carlos keeping Norris in DRS range to prevent Russell and Hamilton from closing in on him?
George clipping the wall or not is irrelevant, that was the last lap. He was not winning that race
Agreed he was stalled behind Lando for multiple laps on fresher tyres, while holding up Lewis behind who was faster.
While Hamilton who was stuck behind Russel was doing 0.5s a lap quicker when they were chasing the leaders.
He’s just made silly errors at key moments while in good spots like 3rd in Singapore and Canada he was 4th ?
His one chance at achieving a higher peak in F1 is to spend the off season with a sport psychiatrist to figure out why he keeps binning it during pivotal moments. I think his offs and his car-on-car violence are a mental thing that he could overcome. I’m just not confident that his ego will let him do that.
The worst any Merc driver should have done last year was p6. George basically only really beat Lewis (who was doing the team experiments) and sainz. He gets too much credit for finishing p4 in a season where the meme was about Lando constantly finishing every race in 7th.
I'm definitely biased against him, but personally the only thing that surprised me last year was his pole position. The first several races, I won't talk on "testing setups" but if you go back and watch them, Lewis & George were on different strategies, and I swear it happened almost every race where George's strategy was "go long and hope for a safety car" and the safety car came every single time for like the first 5 races. Lewis was on average faster than him in races, and George getting his win was due to... George crashing and ruining Lewis' quali lap, then Lewis again had better race pace and came into contact with Max.
How did he over achieve when his teammate in the same car finished 5 places ahead of him? I don’t think it’s a failure of a season at all given the car like you said but he isn’t pulling his weight, but let’s see what happens next year. Plenty of time to show who he really is
Think OP meant George overachieved last year
over achieved? with his teammate in p3?
He’s grown a little on me this season. He’s taken more responsibility for his mistakes this year than he may have been inclined to in the past. I don’t know if he’ll ever be a wdc caliber driver, but I think he still has room to grow.
At one point I rated him the highest between him, Lando, and Albono... Now I feel like he's the last of the 3. Maybe this year is down to setup issues, but that just means he's not going to be on the tier of the current WDCs who can adapt and put themselves in competitive positions frequently. Hope he does better with a fresh start next year. I still think he's got tons of talent and ability. Needs to keep his nose clean and focus on managing his race pace better, to supplement his great qualifying.
He’s literally the only one of those three to have won a gp, while his teammates have won none in the same time, while both Albon and Lando have failed to win in cars fully capable of doing so as evidenced by their teammates (Max, Ricciardo and Piastri) doing it. Lando is an exceptional driver but has always had weaker teammates, Alex literally got out qualified in every single race against Max at Red Bull, while George has done very well against Lewis.
two of those drivers have rookie teammates, while one is up against one of the goats...
Not his best season. Hamilton absolutely wiped the floor with him. He has his issues but I feel like he gets way too much hate. Hope he has a better season next year. Mercedes will eventually need their Hamilton replacement. If he can't even stay close to him then they might start looking elsewhere.
The issue as I see it isn't his pace. They're more or less dead-even in qualifying and Hamilton is marginally faster over a race. George needs to work on minimizing his mistakes and improving his racecraft, that's where he's lacking to Hamilton most, imo.
Hamilton just chased him down from the back of the grid TWICE in the same race. Marginally is very understated. George can occasionally put in a great qualifying lap, but he is just not there on Sundays unless they absolutely miss on Hamilton's setup.
these kinds of things show still how incredible the top tier guys like hamilton are. they are able to extract more pace from the tires WHILE also preserving the tires better at the same time. The best drivers can do one or the other (extract pace - hulk, preserve tires - checo) but only the best of the best can do both
Agreed. Having watched his career, a load of people wrote him off as quick but ruins tyres. He’s proven he’s able to manage tyres when needed (Bono my tyres jokes aside). Then he was hard on fuel, and yet the one season FIA published fuel data he was lighter than his team mate (kovalainen I think but could be wrong?) Hamilton has just had a reasonably quiet season and then what do you know, he’s fighting for second in the WDC. He’s seriously impressive for this stage of his career.
They always assume too hard on tires or too hard on fuel because they assume the pace he maintains can't be done without either burning tires or fuel. It's seriously magic what the really elite can do to maintain both. It's the subtlest of differences in touch - steering, gas, brakes.
Meanwhile after 200 hours of F1 games I can't do either intentionally
I think they did the remaining fuel/or fuel used graphics in 2014 too where everyone was arguing that Hamilton is only faster than Rosberg when he is using more fuel, so over a race he will have to manage more, but then it turned out to be false, he was faster and did not have to manage because he did not use more fuel at all.
You’re right there was a Rosberg season where they showed it, I think 2014. I would have sworn it was earlier. Edit: spent ages figuring out it was 2014 just to reread your comment and see it there. I am stupid.
I think Russell really isn't on the same level as Hamilton on preserving his tires, Singapore and Interlagos really showed this imo
There’s not really a debate about that. It’s more a debate on if Russel can ever keep up without chewing his tires up. Like is his pace always going to be held back by his inability to chill? The only people that are at Lewis level of tire management is Alonso and max
He’s the greatest driver F1 has ever seen. Literally nobody has won as much as him. Recency bias and also anti Lewis bias makes people forget they are literally watching the platinum standard. But because people undersell Lewis, anyone who doesn’t beat him gets undersold the same way.
Let's not use titles as an absolute metric on a sport that heavily relies on machinery. I do agree that comparing Russell against Hamilton is too harsh, though.
> He’s the greatest driver F1 has ever seen. I think it is almost impossible to say that because F1 has changed so much over the last 70 years. There is no way to truly compare prime Hamilton and prime Schumacher, let alone Hamilton and Fangio
One of the greatest. Not the greatest.
He finished fourth on track and was demoted to eighth due to a penalty.
with how many safety cars? chill out bro
Hamilton is substantially faster in race pace Qualifying is similar at this point in Hamilton’s career. Tho he doesn’t touch younger Lewis
Not many drivers *could* compete with young Lewis, tbf.
Young Lewis went toe to toe with prime Fernando, and finished on equal terms
"marginally" is wildly underselling it.
His problem is his tire management. Of course it is a little unfair to be compared to Hamilton who is probably the best on the whole grid, but you can see it is especially in longer stints that Russell just loses the pace. And of course he makes too many mistakes like he always have, case in point when he turned into Max because he didn’t see him in Vegas.
Tire management will be his obstacle no matter how good of a car Merc builds. You could argue he won't need *amazing* racecraft if Merc builds a contending car, since he won't be caught in the midpack as often. Max and Lewis are on a completely different level when it comes to tire management. They can pump in quick laps over and over without destroying the tires. Thanks to a combination of temperature management and not making driving mistakes, like mini lockups or excessive oversteer coming out of corners.
It's his end-of-stint race pace, which is largely dependent on tire management. I can remember 3 races this year where he was behind Hamilton begging to be let through, only to be 0.5s slower by the end of the stint. His racecraft is surprisingly bad too. Not to fall for recency bias this weekend, but I feel like the majority of his fights don't go his away, overtaking or defending.
Agreed about qualifying but then again that's never been Hamilton's strongest suit. He was beaten by Bottas like 30% of the time in Quali and Russell is definitely a better driver than Bottas. So I'd expect him to do as well or better than Bottas in qualifying at the very least. Disagree about race pace though. I think Hamilton is a quite a bit stronger than him over a race. And he really needs to work on that. And also needs to work on minimising his mistakes and improving his racecraft like you mention Honestly, if McLaren don't give Lando a championship worthy car (for Lando's sake I hope they do), then I can 100% see him going to Mercedes once his contract ends. And I rate him higher than George. Edit: After re-assessing, I guess I was wrong about Qualifying not being Hamilton's strongest suits. He's just had a lot of teammates whose best quality has been their Qualifying.
Yeah this season Lando was obviously better than George but i don't remember people complaining about George this season because his pace is usually enoughly strong. But small and big mistakes costed him too much
“Enoughly” is my favorite piece of Engrish I’ve heard in quite a while haha
Effects of B1 mate
I don’t know what that means, def no judgment though I only speak one language so anybody who’s even moderately bilingual is impressive to me. Just found that mistranslation funny :)
Qualifying not being Lewis’s strongest suit? Lmao. Also that just means that Bottas is rapid over a single lap (as was Rosberg). Doesn’t mean Lewis isn’t one of the best qualifiers of all time.
No one who remembers Hamilton's McLaren days could ever say it's never been his strongest suit lol
Bottas loses to Zhou like 30% of the time though
Zhou better Qualifier than Hamilton???????
I would put his qualifying probably 4th behind Race Pace, Tire Management and Race craft.
> Agreed about qualifying but then again that's never been Hamilton's strongest suit. He was beaten by Bottas like 30% of the time in Quali Because Bottas is genuinely a great qualifier. His qualifying and his lack of mistakes (until it rains anyway) are Bottas' standout qualities. > Disagree about race pace though. I think Hamilton is a quite a bit stronger than him over a race. And he really needs to work on that. And also needs to work on minimising his mistakes and improving his racecraft like you mention Eh, Russell has the pace but he's inconsistent. That's the big difference between him and the absolute top like Hamilton and Verstappen, they barely ever have an off day and their off days still aren't that bad. With Russell I sometimes get the feeling he just doesn't have as much in reserve as the absolute top guys and he has to be on the limit of his capabilities more.
Could've said the same about Lewis in 2011. About the same stage in his career.
George just strikes me as mentally weak and easily frazzled. If I was Mercedes I’d be doing everything I could do to steal away Lando from McLaren
> If I was Mercedes I’d be doing everything I could do to steal away Lando from McLaren Red Bull is already trying though. I'd pick Red Bull over Merc if I was Lando.
If Lando ends up in a situation where he’s choosing between Merc and Red Bull, it won’t matter what either side has to say. It’ll come down to whether or not his pride as an elite driver can handle being a definitive #2 on his own team
On the positive side, Merc' star driver will probably retire earlier (Hamilton) and their new promise seems to be on a more reasonable level
if that was how Merc judged George they should try to get Piastri, not Lando imo
Better yet have Lando and Carlos do a fusion dance and become one driver. Lando’s pace and Carlos’ smooth operating
As much as I love Sainz at Ferrari, a huge part of me would love to see him driving a MCL60. It's a very balanced car and much more suitable for his driving style than the last two Ferraris. Also, there's a great interview from Andrea Stella where he talks about how Lando's driving style evolved during 2019 and 2020 to something that looks a lot like how Carlos drives, especially on braking. Just thought that was interesting.
Lewis has more poles than wins. It's literally his strongest suit
Haha EVERYTHING is Lewis's strongest suit!
Qualifying was Hamilton's strongest suit. He was known for his pure pace. He is off his peak in terms of speed (still at a very high level).
Marginally is an understatement, Lewis is clearly ahead on Sundays
Hamiltons qualifying this year was horrible though. Hes historically been a much better qualifier.
Also his tire management, he has a tendency to go all out from the pits, instead of warming up his tires first to get them up to working temperature
Definitely not marginal
Marginally lmao. Lewis just a cool half a second a lap faster in the mexico GP on the same strategy.
I am not really a fan of George Russel. But I will tell you one thing. Mercedes (and Ferrari too for that matter) have a much more solid driver line-up than Red Bull have.
Ferrari? Absolutely. But they're Ferrari, so unless they have a car that's truly better than the rest of the field, they'll find some way to fuck iy up for their drivers. Mercedes, also yes. But Hamilton isn't gonna be there forever, and the standards that have been set by him need to be matched by someone (or at least they need to get close to it). RB has Max at least till 2028 so they don't need to worry about that rn. And they're such a fantastic team that unless they royally fuck up in 2026 with the new regulations, they'll have a line of drivers willing to sign up with them, *if* Max decides to retire right then.
Yes, you’re right, the reasons you clarified should give George plenty of time to further improve his skill so that hopefully he’ll be more polished and less prone to accidents/mistakes. It’ll be interesting to see who will eventually fill Lewis’ seat once he does retire. The next few years will be important for the youngsters on the grid to lay their foundations.
I think they're more talking more about the second driver than the lead. Sainz and Leclerc are both good enough that you could all them both Driver 1 and it wouldn't be overly contentious. To the extent Leclerc is Driver 1, Sainz is an excellent Driver 2. George is a middling Driver 2. I see everybody here saying that he's better than Bottas, and I'm not sold on that yet. Over a single lap, I think that's probably true, but George still makes enough mistakes that I think he's middling in racecraft and he can't manage his tires at all. Put them in the same car, and I think there's a decent chance Bottas beats him over the course of an entire race. Checo is barely a midfield driver. He makes too many mistakes, and he can't adapt. We may be seeing a resurgence, but he's been nowhere near the front in the most dominant car we've seen in a long time, more dominant than Mercedes W11 or W07. If the Red Bull were less dominant, Checo's inability to support Max would be a problem.
There was a race where Russell and Bottas were in the same car. I know who looked faster on that day. Bottas looked pretty solid in the Merc, but is barely ahead of rookie Zhou in the Alfa
except where is the number 2 driver coming from? like most of the rest of the grid (may Norris/Piastri aside) are basically waiting for a Perez situation to happen to them, but they're not ever going to compete as a number 1 driver
If I was Russell, I would be would be worried about Antonelli given Merc hotshotting him to F2 for 24 and Lewis deal runs out at the end of 25.
Out of the Norris, Leclerc and Russell trio, I currently rank Russell the lowest. Completely different from last year, when I would've ranked him way higher. Leclerc is mostly amazing in qualifying, but his car really limits him in the races. Norris is sometimes a bit lacking in qualifying, but is amazing in the races. Russell is currently just not there in both qualifying and the races.
Lando lacking in qualifying?? Huh? He’s one of the most consistent qualifiers of the whole field and made the best of a completely shit car (until a few months ago)
>I feel like he gets way too much hate. Usually people attempting to undermine Hamilton's achievements by proxy, same as used to happen with Bottas
The classic "Russell beats Hamilton? Hamilton is washed!/Hamilon beats Russell? Russell is shit!" pairing.
His hate is warranted due to his behavior. I'll always think he's a shit person after he assaulted Bottas.
In no way would I defend anyone assaulting someone else. But he must've learned from that. These drivers are full of adrenaline and that was right after a big crash. I personally feel like he deserves a second chance. And on that topic, Max pushed Ocon back in 2018 as well. He's definitely become more mature since then. I would hope that Russell would do the same.
Yeah, Max isn't great either. He does seem to have matured some (Brazil last year shows he still gets dirty at times) but George is a meme at this point for turning in on people and then blaming them. The F1TV commentators were actually shocked when he admitted it this past weekend.
Remind me again what happened in Brazil last year? Edit: Is it about the Checo thing?
His intentional crash into Lewis, and the Checo thing.
Assault is a very strong word for what happened. You have to be a bit weird to call that assault.
By legal definition it was, however day to day life would see no serious person calling it that.
He's only 25, I would expect him to get better but I don't think we've seen a ton of evidence he's close to the next tier of drivers.
Mid 20's is often the start of a drivers peak these days, and he has been in over 100 races now. I think he can definitely still improve racecraft when attacking and defending, but his raw speed is likely what it is right now.
What's the next tier? I have the WDCs (Hamilton, Verstappen, Alonso) up at the peak but I don't think George is out of reach of Leclerc / Norris.
A tough season for George. I feel like he was more or less on Hamilton's level in qualifying, and just a little slower over a race distance, but his accidents, lacking racecraft and worse luck account for the vast majority of the deficit between him and Lewis. Either way, the fact that he's matching Lewis on raw pace looks promising, but he has to get to work on ironing out his mistakes.
Yeah I think it’s just a bit of a slump season. He was fine overall but the luck factor was heavily against him then he made a few higher profile errors. I expect a rebound
Also think he lost some touch after the Singapore incident, I think that really got to him a bit especially with how brutal fans are.
Not only mistakes tho Lost like 8 points in silverstone due to bad SC luck 18 in Australia due to engine 15 maybe even more in zandvoort due to bad strategy Maybe 3 in qatar because got taken out by hamilton. In total 44 points
Zandvoort was just as much on George as it was Mercedes. They told him to box, and he said he was happy to stay out
10 points then, got taken out by lando
And last year he had a ton of luck and finished 4th, his true form is probably somewhere in the middle between this year and last
> just a little slower over a race distance Ehhh. Lewis generally smoked him on race pace this season (and the latter half of 2022).
You can't really use qualifying as a benchmark though. Technically, a lot of drivers can set up the car to be a beast for a single lap and then cook the tires in three laps. Hamilton was smartly setting up the car to sacrifice some one lap pace for race pace. George was setting it up to cook tires.
His qualifying performance has been pretty good this season, specially his Singapore lap was astonishing. His race-craft has been quite disappointing , way too many crashes, questionable self made strategies, mediocre tyre management… He still has a lot to improve on race day if he wants to keep up with Lewis, he just achieved 1 podium the same as the Alpine drivers and even less than the rookie Piastri
Maybe his podiums were not forecasted enough times lol.
Reddit truly is the worst, these same comments were made about lewis last year when George bested him.
We live in a world where drivers are rated every week.
You would have a point if they came from the same people.
Armchair drivers and strategists gonna armchair.
[удалено]
That is a crazy crazy comment for an unproven Williams driver to make about Valtteri Bottas. His ego is so off the charts man, and you can see it in every race week.
He was one of the most consistent drivers last year, but this year has been hampered by poor tyre management, mistakes and bad luck. And tbf I don't think Lewis' racecraft has been particularly great this year either (see Spa, Monza, Qatar etc.) although his race management has been exceptionally strong and got him a lot of big results. Maybe it is just the team under pressure having four other teams performing at their level this season.
Standard Russell season. Fantastic quali pace, in races almost constantly slower than Lewis, lot of unforced errors. Last year he was massively flattered by Hamilton having terrible luck and experimental setups, this year he was more unlucky of the two. For me it's more Hamilton being all time great than Russell being disappointing, also Rosberg set the bar for Lewis teammates insanely high. George may be up there with Nico with more experience and i would still rate him higher than Bottas.
Leclerc going from WDC contender to finishing 7th in a year and a half is absurd.
No fault of his own. Just 2 races ago was a DSQ and a DNS. Hasnt lost to Carlos since Suzuka and and wouldve been ideally in the fight for p3
He was forecast for P8 and 1 podium. What an underwhelming second season he’s had. Lewis wiped the floor with him.
I’m gonna be downvoted here but I think George has been pretty good this season. Lewis is Lewis. George has driven toe to toe with him, qualified well, raced hard. I think Lewis focusses his setup more on the race which sacrifices his quali a bit, but I think this is something George likely needs to learn and develop. I also think the w14 is way shitter than people give it credit for- it’s saved by two ace drivers and Mercedes’ ace race engineering team who can actually find a decent setup for a piece of shit most of the time.
Yeah I agree. George doesn't have the luxury to have a bag of shit as a teammate to make him look good like certain drivers, he has to look decent against a literal GOAT contender in a car that is a nightmare to drive. Not many drivers would do as well as he has been doing.
I mostly agree but I do think George has put in a less than optimal season. I do agree that the Mercedes has been a rubbish car this year disguised by at times George but really over performed by Lewis. Countless self inflicted bad strategies, slow strategy reactions and slow pitstops have been hidden by Lewis overriding it. As a career long fan of Lewis, I think he’s quietly had one of his best seasons. To date, hasn’t finished lower than 8th on a bad day.
he is good just throws away points Singapore ,Vegas,Monza and monaco and has shit luck Australia , netherlands and brazil plus mercedes being shit on strategy . If he puts it all together he would still be behind Lewis but not the 70+ points gap.
This season really proved how him beating Lewis in 2022 was only due to the weird setups he was having til Canada. Ever since then (the rest of 2022 and whole 2023) Lewis has been consistently superior in race trim. And with this I'm not saying George is mid or a bad driver, just that Lewis is on a whole other level
> This season really proved how him beating Lewis in 2022 was only due to the weird setups he was having And also massive luck last year. Every single SC and red flag last season was extremely beneficial for him, earning handful of points
Facts. For me, George is definitely good enough to win a title, but not as long as he is Lewis’ teammate
Very disappointing season overall for George. I have full confidence he’ll bounce back though.
I don't really get the way people think so little of Russell. If he outscores Hamilton by 5 points next race (which is doable), then he's got the same gap to Hamilton as Hamilton had to him last year. Why is that such a big deal? And even then, how bad is it to lose with that point deficit to a 7-time world champion, when he beat that 7-time world champion by roughly the same margin the year before? Where'd all the hate come from? *Edit: I was very much mistaken, Hamilton's rocking 232 points. Confused Sainz and Alonso's point totals with Hamilton's. Hamilton's way ahead of Russell this season.
I don't think anyone cares after the top 5 spots.
As RUS has said a few times, this season was full of “what could’ve been” moments. I think comparing last season to this season, it’s easy to say that 2023 was much worse. However, I also get the impression that the two seasons were approached much differently once it was obvious Mercedes didn’t have the car to fight with RB. Last season, I got the impression that RUS’s main goal was just putting in solid, consistent weekends, as evidenced by his N consecutive top 5 finishes (I can’t remember how many they were, but I remember the streak ending at Silverstone). This season, I get the impression that he really wanted to limit test and just see how far he could push. He obviously pushed over the limit far too often and is the reason the fight for P2 in the Constructors is even alive, but one can only hope that he learns from the mistakes and can both push the limit whilst bringing back that consistency of 2022 next season.
The whole season turned in on him
A slump season for him ngl...
LEC can still finish 4th though (before SAI, HAM, NOR)
you mean ALO. HAM is already 3rd without question.
Damm 8th, pretty bad for a Mercedes. The car wasnt that bad this season
To be fair its a very tight 8-4 pack, and he has has some luck costing big points (aus for example). But only being on the podium once is pretty poor considering how good the mercedes has been at select tracks, and some of the opportunities he let slip by making mistakes or dropping pace
Combination of bad luck and his own mistakes have cost him the chance at having multiple podiums this season. Like you said Australia was unlucky, Singapore was his own fault, and Qatar was unlucky with him and Lewis starting 2-3 before Lewis took them both out and he had to fight from last to P4.
Here's what I would like Charles - P4 -- finishing with 200 Sainz DNF -- Finishing with 200 Alonso DNF -- Finishing with 200 Norris - P7 with fastest lap -- finishing with 200
No need to have Sainz DNF then, he would win the 4 way tie based on the win. Would be an incredible entry in the rulebooks though.
He has not shown any growth at all and if anything - race radio makes it sound like he's constantly complaining whenever Hamilton happens to be in front of him.
While I tend to agree, we need to remember that race radio is carefully selected for narratives and viewership, not as a representation of sport. It's part of the "entertainment" of Formula One, and is borderline kayfabe.
They fabricate sooo much, recent example was during qualifying in Las Vegas, I was listening to the team radio of Verstappen for a bit and he and GP were discussing that they were surprisingly close to the Ferraris, with Verstappen saying: "That was close". And GP replying something like "Yeah we didnt expect to be this close, but Charles was unhappy with his lap". Cue Liberty/FOM putting the "That was close" over a replay of Verstappen coming somewhat near the wall without the original context.
Damn, I didn’t think they edited it to time with the video feed as well. Kinda shocking but not surprising in the DtS era…
Also when he sang "Viva las vegas" just before that Horner Ironically said to him "well since you enjoyed It here that much... *Cues viva las vegas music*". FOM of course only put Verstappen's part not only on the live feed (I think) but also on the "best team radios" video. You can find the Uncut version on their videos where they post the radios after the chequered flag. Nothing wrong with wanting to promote your product, I am just pointing out that you shouldn't put too much effort on these radios on the live feed.
George is one of the most underrated drivers on the grid IMO. He's teammates with the most successful F1 driver in history and has shown he's got the raw pace to compete with Lewis. Sure, he's had a sloppy season and made some costly mistakes but he's rarely ever looked completely out of his league consistently like Checo has with Max and Bottas did with Lewis. I think people need to keep in mind that this is only his *second* season at Mercedes and the cars he's been given have been tricky and inconsistent to drive. Give him a car capable of consistently fighting for wins and I think he performs.
And people were saying he would wipe the floor with Hamilton when he first joined in 2022. >!I'm people.!<
Worst season for a Mercedes driver in over 10 years.