George Russell, Robert Kubica, Williams, Red Bull Ring, 2019

Kubica backs Russell to deliver once he gets a competitive car

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In the round-up: Robert Kubica says his rookie team mate George Russell has everything he needs to succeed in Formula 1 except a capable car.

What they say

Kubica was asked about his impressions of team mate Russell after their first eight races alongside each other:

I think we will see in the future years if he gets a competitive car what he will be capable of doing. Definitely he showed great pace and a great talent and big knowledge about what he is doing for his age.

But I think this is a bit a trend of young drivers. The way they grow up is a bit different than 10 years ago and they have an opportunity to know things earlier from a technical point of view and they work with, in George’s case, with Mercedes, which definitely is a big advantage.

I think he has all the cards to deliver but the stronger card is missing: It’s the car.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Will Mercedes do to Formula E what they’ve done to Formula 1?

There are those who are saying F1 is boring, and Formula E is the future. Guess what will happen when Mercedes turn their attention fully to Formula E? In a couple of years they will be the dominant team in the series. And then what will everyone say?
NeverElectric

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On this day in F1

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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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19 comments on “Kubica backs Russell to deliver once he gets a competitive car”

  1. There are those who are saying F1 is boring, and Formula E is the future. Guess what will happen when Mercedes turn their attention fully to Formula E? In a couple of years they will be the dominant team in the series. And then what will everyone say?

    CotD – I think the one difference between FE and F1 is the fanbase.

    F1’s fanbase is much more passionate, rooted in history, and having very long memories.
    FE – I can’t speak much for the fanbase, but I’d think they’re younger, and support drivers more than teams (at least at present).

    If Mercedes defects to FE, I don’t think they’ll take many of their F1 fans with them (it’d need a Hamilton defection to achieve that). Most of F1’s fans will instead move on to moaning about the next new problem in F1, and moping over the lost glory days of decades past.

    In FE, will the fans start moaning about dominance from the very outset? (Predicated on the assumption that Mercedes will dominate FE quickly)
    I don’t think so. Maybe the newer and less-passionate fanbase in FE might be an asset in such a case. And Agag seems a sharp person, so learning from F1’s mistakes, they may take quick steps to fairly level the field there.

    Also, if Mercedes dominate FE, maybe Mercedes’ big-name FE competitors (Audi/BMW/Nissan) might be made of sterner stuff than F1: they might step up to the challenge and deliver.

    1. Neverelectric
      Mercedes isn’t in f1 either, their money is. Mercedes f1 is a British team with a British engine, and a German sponsor. If lauda and brawn hadn’t snatched Lewis, mercedes wouldn’t have considered f1 finantially viable as they had little success beforehand.
      As soon as mercedes loses they will leave and that’s why f1 keeps feeding rbr and mercedes because they are sponsors not f1 teams, their employees want to be in f1. Ferrari mclaren williams and so forth will always be faithful to f1. Agag is no sherlock, teams and bad fans have taken the sport out of f1, it has become procedurely worse, there are no variables and so little point to actually race, all pre-determined, not even the wet races are fun. No refuelling and one obligatory pitstop so just put on wets and be reliable, too wet? Red flag. Restart and win.

  2. I don’t think Formula E would ever let anybody get the sort of advantage that would allow them to dominate.

    Look at the recent decision to ban Nissan’s dual motor setup. The sort of innovative thinking & interesting technology with the sort of challenges to be figured out which that series should surely be pushing yet they preemptively banned it just in case it gave Nissan an advantage once they had all the quirks figured out because ‘the show’ & all.

    How very sad :(

    1. @roger-ayles, the indication is that the ban wasn’t “for the show”, but because evidence was produced showing that the way that the Nissan team were using that second motor was breaking the rules (it has been suggested that Nissan are using the second motor as an energy store that can be used separately to the batteries).

  3. I’d previously sworn never to read an article about Bernie, but that headline was too tantalizing to pass up.

    His premise starts off intriguingly enough – separate championships for PU manufacturer teams and standalone teams. But the detail then devolves into a complicated mish-mash that’ll end up making – or should I say keeping? – F1 a multi-tier sport.

    1. Thanks for the summary @phylyp, now I can safely maintain my own no-Bernie-attention regime ;-)

      1. @bosyber – happy to take one for the team ;-)

  4. Bernie knows business, but we all age and he missed the digital media potencial, that’s the only thing Liberty is trying to improve, actually.
    This Idea of having PU manufacturers separated from chassis builders would work, I think, specially If PU manufacturers were NOT allowed to build the chassis.
    Back to the 70’s and 80’s way of doing It, I Guess.

    1. If PU manufacturers were NOT allowed to build the chassis

      The visibility and media exposure of being only a PU manufacturer is far lesser than running a team. That’s the key drawback to your suggestion, and is the reason why we’ve seen teams like Mercedes and Renault re-enter as constructors instead of just supplying engines to a favoured team (McLaren, RBR).

      If Honda decide to stay on in F1, I believe they will also be looking to acquire a team (and I’ve had a long-held belief that RBR might check out to Honda in the coming years, instead of VAG as I previously expected).

      1. Thanks for the summary @phylyp, now I can safely maintain my own no-Bernie-attention regime ;-)

        1. Hm, Google decided my connection is too weak (true, as German non-city areas often are digital deserts) so need their ‘lite’ version of racefans.net messed up – seems it makes responding not work (or oddly). This meant for where the comment also appeared.

  5. Neil (@neilosjames)
    28th June 2019, 1:34

    Bernie’s trolling us again…

  6. Really looking forward to Oward Debut!

    1. Frankie Oward?

      (apologies to all non anglophone readers, who won’t have a clue what I’m on about!)

  7. So glad that Ticktum is being dumped by Red Bull. All for redemption, but he didn’t deserve it. His attitude in F3 and over the winter in the Asia series was truly disgusting. He’s just a bit of a ‘not very nice person’. And it was very unsavoury seeing some (British) journalists absolutely fawning over him and his redemption story. Something clearly happened, but it’s all for the good.

  8. To back up Kubica regarding Russell:

    Another young driver spent the 2001 season in a car nearly 4 seconds a lap slower than the best car. He managed to outshine his teammate though and had a decent career after that I think.

  9. About Russell – Kubica’words are of course nice, but… did anyone have doubts that he is a talented kid?!

    Looks to me like a bit of a wordplay from Robert to show that he himself is still good…

  10. Bernie… Dear Bernie… please, enjoy your deserved retirement!
    I suggest some remote and secluded island without any means of modern communication…

    Sounds fantastic, right!?

  11. So the question then is, is Kubica bad or Russell that good. Only thing Kubica can say at this point, to salvage his career is how god Russell is, and hope they move him up to a faster team.

    What do you guys think, should they take him to Mercedes? What team should then snatch up Bottas?

    Those are some hard questions, if Russell was in midfield, doing this well against an average teammate, that would be a no brainier. But if he does any magical 0.5s above teammate with a -4s car, who would even notice?

    But if you do a 0.5s on Bottas in a Mercedes you are fast a candidate for all time greatness.

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