George Russell, Williams, Hungaroring, 2019

Williams’ Hungary performance may have been a “one-off” – Russell

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In the round-up: George Russell says Williams enjoyed their strongest weekend so far in Hungary, but isn’t sure if it will be repeated.

What they say

Russell started 15th and finished 16th in a race where only one other car retired:

It’s definitely the best weekend of the year. I think yesterday exceeded all expectations and probably exceeded the reality. We absolutely maximised our single lap. I think the other teams made some errors, obviously you saw the mess with Perez and Ricciardo, I think today was more of the reality.

We made a step but we’re still quite far from from the rest so [if we] continue at this rate, and we should be able to continue at this rate, we should be in the mix more often.

The fact is within two weekends with the updates, last weekend was an absolute disaster, this weekend was very positive. So we need to see if this weekend was a one-off for or not.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

There’s a lot to like about the state of F1 at the moment:

I thoroughly enjoyed that race, two incredible drivers absolutely going for it. Relentless for the entire race, Verstappen and Hamilton were in a class of two.

Cool to see Mercedes pull a Red Bull-esque bold move and for James Vowles to receive the constructors trophy (great call and great belief in their driver!)

A compelling race (or duel?) whatever the result and the fourth race in the row F1 has delivered an intense and riveting spectacle.

I imagine in 12 seasons’ time, Verstappen doing the exact same thing to whoever the next ‘bright young thing’ is and I can’t wait! I love this sport!

The Red Bull Renaissance is to be appreciated, combined with Honda’s (Ilmor-inspired) improvement bodes well for the future.
@Ju88sy

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On this day in F1

  • 35 years ago today Alain Prost won the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring ahead of team mate Niki Lauda

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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23 comments on “Williams’ Hungary performance may have been a “one-off” – Russell”

  1. Well done to both Williams drivers. I say both because Robert kept Georgy (with all the upgrades) within 10 -15 sec gap all race long. His second half of the race he was matching and even catching him until the last pitstop.

    1. Yeah it was pretty interesting to see them actually quite close on pace despite yesterday. They were both not that far off Stroll and Gio. I read somewhere that RK has been actually damaging his front wing in the last two qualis so maybe if they fix the quality of the parts they produce we might see both drivers fight it out later in the year.

  2. Ah Alonso, never known for his subtlety but this is a pretty blatant dig at the no.2 drivers at Mercedes and Redbull. “Hey guys, do you think I’d be getting lapped by my teammate?” Don’t see either team being interested though – too disruptive for Mercedes and ofc Vettel hits the nail on the head for his Redbull chances. If they lost Verstappen that could be overcome as they would be pretty desperate for a star driver at that point but I don’t see Verstappen leaving while Redbull are on the ascendancy – they may be genuine title contenders next year.

    1. Hm, I didn’t really see the dig in Alonso’s statement until I saw your comment and then went back to see how if one reads between the lines with one’s head tilted just so, one can make that out.

      To me, it read more of a statement of how their race meant the two of them charged ahead, and the gap to the midfield (given his former seat’s new occupant was in 5th).

    2. @keithedin

      Ah Alonso, never known for his subtlety but this is a pretty blatant dig

      Erm, no. The ‘dig’ you’re referring to was so subtle, you’d need a particle detector to determine whether there even was one.
      It’s not his fault Gasly’s and Bottas’ races sucked (for very different reasons), he just commented on the resulting constellation: Hamilton and Verstappen utterly crushing everyone else.

      1. Ok I’ll play…I like Max’s response to LH…’Alright-I didn’t say that’….’but it needed to be said, and I’m glad someone did.’

  3. Roth Man (@rdotquestionmark)
    5th August 2019, 7:03

    I would go as far as to say there has never been a more thrilling 4 races in back to back succession in my 23 years of watching. Would be interesting to see if Keith’s rate the race scoring agrees. You know as mean score over the 4.

    1. @rdotquestionmark – good point, I too would like to see the math of a) mean over 4 successive races (i.e. rolling average) and b) mean of top 4 rated races in a season.

  4. Well, I hope this wasn’t a one-off although given the track characteristics I’m afraid it indeed is going to prove to be that.
    – I thoroughly agree with the COTD.

  5. Stroll ran away from williams now look at where he is. Got to give credit where credit us due that mercedes rear end is working a treat on the williams, we need williams.

    1. @peartree

      Agree. so many of us grew up with Williams as a aprt of F1, that it’s saddening to see them motoring around at the back so much. Their biggest handicap is funds.

      They need sponsors with big money that they can spend on development and technical know how to move back up the feild. But until they can move up the feild, they struggle to interest the bug money sponsors.

      1. Arrrghh…*Big* not bug. Don’t you just hate it when you proof read twice and still miss a spelling error that obvious.

        1. @nikkit
          Well, considering the possible knock-on effects of ecological considerations on future nutritional technologies, bug money is (the future) big money.

  6. I wonder how many people accepted the friendship request by @marian212 (who is using an image of Hannah Winterbourne).

    Can only expect this to be(come) a Troll or Spam account, @keithcollantine.
    Or maybe just an advocacy group of transgender military personnel; but then at least say so.

    1. Got the request a day or two ago and ignored it, since it came within minutes of that profile having been created. Thanks for bringing it to Keith’s attention, @coldfly.

      I too have no idea why someone would target a site like this for such an activity, but then, hey, I don’t even know why this site has that friends function! :)

      1. I don’t even know why this site has that friends function!

        It’s for people like me who don’t have friends in the real world, @phylyp ;)

    2. Yeah, definitely suss. Their only activity on the site is you mentioning them here…

    3. 99 so far in answer to your question

    4. Also ignored. For starters, no one ever friends me, secondly, no activity on their profile is a solid nope for me.

  7. Can someone clarify me?

    Where do we stand on fake pit stops?

    1. I think there’s a gentleman’s agreement that more than one dummy and race control might give a warning.

      It’s a good question, @johnmilk, because yesterday we saw a crew hanging around the box like they were waiting for a suntan.

    2. Part of the game. Throw as much strategy and variables into the mix as you can, noone should be moaning about fake pit stops.

Comments are closed.