George Russell had no complaints over how his team mate raced him during the Japanese Grand Prix despite voicing concerns on his radio at the time.
The two Mercedes drivers fought each other hard at two points in yesterday’s race at Suzuka. Russell passed Lewis Hamilton shortly after the Safety Car restart only for his team mate to reverse the move. Later on Hamilton ran wide at Degner Two, then forcefully repelled an attack by Russell at Spoon curve which led to both drivers run off-track.Russell told his team over that radio that Hamilton hadn’t left him enough space and warned then he was losing time through their fighting. But following the race Russell told media “I view it as good, hard racing”.
“To be in the position to be putting him under pressure and making moves on him I was happy with, so I will take the positives from that,” said Russell. “The pace of the car on my side I thought was really strong considering how difficult the car has been to drive this weekend.
“It’s just hard, fair racing. Of course, we lost a bit of overall time fighting with one another and again, you are a bit frustrated on the radio but that’s just part of racing.”
Despite the time lost by the drivers while racing, Russell said there was no need to discuss the matter further internally. “Both of us lost time to the cars around us [but] as I said, we’re not going to give the position up easily to one another.
“It was still early on in the race, I had more pace but he was the car who was ahead. As I said, it’s part of racing, we’re not even going to discuss it, there’s nothing to discuss. We’ve got bigger fish to fry which is how do we make our car go quicker.”
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He played down his radio complaints, saying: “You use the radio as a bit of a release valve because it’s so hot in the car, it’s a long race, you’ve been pushing for an hour-and-a-half, you’re fighting every inch.”
Hamilton, who finished two places ahead of his team mate in fifth place, said their fight was “definitely aggressive, but I think it was good racing”.
The seven-times champion said his car had been damaged in his first lap contact with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, which made it hard to keep up the pace in front of Russell.
“Honestly, I shouldn’t have really been in that position but I think I picked up a little something on the right-front and it just kept slipping the front-right [at the] last corner and turn nine. Then it wouldn’t turn through the hairpin, all weekend I’ve been good through the hairpin and then just I was turning and nothing was happening.
“So I definitely struggled on track with the balance. But it was a good battle, a little bit aggressive but it was what was needed to get position.”
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2023 Japanese Grand Prix
- Norris: Red Bull’s dominance down to ‘small things which make a big difference’
- Mercedes must halve deficit to Red Bull before 2024 season starts – Hamilton
- Mercedes expect “tight” fight for second in championship after Ferrari gains
- Norris breaks Hulkenberg’s record for most points without a win in F1
- Transcript: What Alonso really meant by being “thrown to the lions” at Suzuka
David BR (@david-br)
25th September 2023, 12:09
A reminder that some times can have two competitive racers: Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Alpine… Unlike Red Bull no-Racing.
melanos
25th September 2023, 12:21
Mostly and regrettably true. There was however a bit of real competition at RBR in the early season. But after the humiliation in Miami. Checo’s form has gone down the drain
S
25th September 2023, 12:31
Now those teams have that – however, all them have done the ‘One Driver Team’ thing at some point when they were fighting for (and taking) championships.
Equally, Red Bull have also been a ‘Two Driver Team’ for many years. Just not right now.
Jeffrey Powell
25th September 2023, 12:31
And Mass plus I think Williams and Aston Martin would like to. Even Red Bull junior appear to have stumbled upon a competitive pairing a bit embarrassing for a feeder team with nowhere to feed.
Facts&Stats
25th September 2023, 12:31
If you talk about ‘allowed to race’, rather than ‘quality of the racers’, then that’s utter nonsense.
Mercedes made it clear yesterday that they want Hamilton to reel in more points (makes sense due to WDC situation), rather than maximising WCC points (they could’ve done a ‘Sainz’ DRS-train with Hamilton being the rearguard with the better acceleration/braking).
Ferrari decided in Singapore the same; they had various other options to try and maximise team points, but explicitly decided to go for the race win.
Also McLaren and Alpine issued team orders yesterday.
The non-racing at RBR is primarily due to the fact that both drivers are seldomly finding themselves close on track. The Saturday time sheets give a good indication of the reason why.
MadMax (@madmax)
25th September 2023, 12:51
Sainz would have overtaken both of them. Russell was too slow. So they maximized the points.
George.be
25th September 2023, 12:59
Then Lewis needs to go to the Fernando Alonso / Carlos Sainz Defense School. While behind Russel, dropping back in the slow corners, to just within the DRS, and going full blast where there is a danger of overtaking. In front of Russel Lewis couldn’t help, because Russel didn’t have the traction any more.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th September 2023, 13:29
Well, Sainz had a wingman doing all his work last time around. But I do agree that Lewis is not the best defender because he has a tendency to let the driver by and then run them down. I suspect he finds it a bit more fun than just keeping the driver behind all the time. He definitely prefers overtaking and racing to just blocking and that can definitely be a weakness and a strength depending on the situation.
MadMax (@madmax)
25th September 2023, 14:56
sorry, but thats nonsense. when lap time difference is that high then there is no chance holding sainz back. george simply was too slow with his wrong strategy.
Ajaxn
25th September 2023, 22:35
….And while Hamilton is defending against Sainz behind Russell, Leclerc is getting away ahead of them. You know, had Hamilton not wasted time battling Russell, there’s every reason to believe he could have caught Leclerc who was only 6 seconds ahead on older tyres. Mercedes has every chance of overtaking Ferrari for 2nd place but only if they work together and not against each other.
Facts&Stats
25th September 2023, 15:27
sorry, but thats nonsense. when lap time difference is that high then there is a chance holding sainz back. george simply has to keep Ham within 1s and accelerate hard on every straight.
Impossible for Sainz to overtake two Mercs; ask Sainz how he managed Singapore.
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
25th September 2023, 15:53
What Sainz did in Singapore is less likely at Suzuka, where the straight is wider with more space to overtake. And Russell’s tyres had much less traction to keep up with Hamilton while Sainz had much fresher rubber.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
25th September 2023, 20:27
Suzuka is also a relatively hard track to pass on.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
25th September 2023, 20:24
Evidently you don’t have a lot of experience with drs trains, check monza and other tracks where you can overtake, how many episodes did we have over the years of faster drivers stuck in drs trains? Sainz’s delta was not higher than those.
SteveP
25th September 2023, 21:57
Basically, as you point out without spelling it out for those not catching on, the one chance they really had was to allow Hamilton to pass immediately and have him offer DRS to Russell to pull him forward while Sainz had no DRS. The exact opposite of Sainz’s tactic at Singapore.
By the time Russell obeyed the instruction, he’d wasted 5 laps of assistance and put both Mercs inside DRS for Sainz.
The only risk in that was that Russell still wouldn’t have enough pace to prevent the overtake, which would have been no worse than the actual outcome.
Russell doesn’t seem to think things through.
At Singapore, he had less pace than Hamilton but wanted to keep the 3rd place to prove how good he was, while swapping a few laps earlier would have put Hamilton on Norris’s tail – a prospect that would probably worry Norris more than Russell ever could, and nervous drivers make mistakes – as Russell proved.
David BR (@david-br)
25th September 2023, 15:41
@Facts&Stats Yes, I was talking about the quality of the drivers. Not whether they are always allowed to race: obviously team orders can still play a part when points are needed.
Facts&Stats
25th September 2023, 15:58
Fair enough! You confused me by talking about the team (“Red Bull no-Racing”) rather than the drivers.
As mentioned above, Perez was confident enough (with himself and/or the car) earlier this season that we got some inkling of racing. But the gap between both drivers has only widened since (interestingly Perez came closest in Singapore).
All the other teams you mentioned have had driver pairings (e.g. NOR/RIC, HAM/ROS, ALO/VAN, ALO/RAI) in the past which caused them to have little racing between the teammates.
David BR (@david-br)
25th September 2023, 16:58
It was a dig at the team though! The team has shifted to focus almost exclusively on Verstappen and have certainly created a monstrous title winning machine (car+driver) in doing so. But that has come at the cost of any competition for the WDC this year.
I simply don’t think Perez is ever expected to win. That’s where I disagree with some of the driver pairings you list: NOR/RIC: I think McLaren would have expected a lot more from Ricciardo. HAM/ROS: Rosberg was a good driver, beat MS while there, won a title, and at least made a competition of the other seasons. He was never signed as a second driver and indeed the Merc rivalry of those years reflected that fact. ALO/RAI: Raikkonen was another good driver, exceptional sometimes, but compared to Alonso, true, zero competitiveness. Ferrari, on the other hand, have allowed their drivers to compete even when with an outside chance of winning the WDC and WCC. Raikkonen/Massa, Vettel/Leclerc, Leclerc/Sainz (very briefly last year).
Clearly, though, my grievance is seeing Verstappen sail through an entire season barely perturbed by the ‘Perez threat.’ And no, that’s not down to designing a car that doesn’t suit him. Any top driver should be able to adapt to by far the fastest car on the grid and be finishing P2 regularly at least. That’s not even an ambition any more.
Facts&Stats
25th September 2023, 18:15
Oops, HAM/ROS should of course have been HAM/BOT.
You seemed to have missed all the press about Vettel being the clear #1. But he just couldn’t live up to it.
And regarding your frustration towards RBR; I think it is their hiring department which is failing us, rather than their car development department. RBR’s alleged interest in Norris shows that they still don’t mind having two drivers who can both compete for race wins.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
25th September 2023, 20:28
Hamilton-rosberg little racing? I find this strange.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
25th September 2023, 20:29
Ah, saw now you corrected to bottas, makes sense.
David BR (@david-br)
25th September 2023, 22:58
Vettel was clear number one when Raikkonen was there, but then RAI had checked out long ago anyhow, it’s not as though he ever wanted the job himself. VET/LEC, on the other hand, I disagree totally. Sure Vettel was number one on paper, but Leclerc was brought in to be trained up as his replacement and immediately drove like the training period was two races long at most, effectively forcing Vettel out of the team (not a criticism: Russell would do the same now at Mercedes given half a chance).
True my complaint (moan) is with RBR’s hiring department only. The car development is maximizing for their best driver, completely sound.
Doggy
26th September 2023, 21:22
I literally posted something very similar to your post Factsandstats prior to reading your message.
Completely agree with you here
Doggy
26th September 2023, 21:19
@david-br I think you got it right with Mercedes in this race.
But there were clear team orders for McLaren in Susuka and team orders for Ferrari in Singapore.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
25th September 2023, 12:34
I do think the Spoon incident would probably have been looked at by the stewards had it been two drivers from different teams. To not only run another driver, but also yourself off the track in defence is generally frowned upon. But it makes sense that Russell would want to downplay it after the fact, once the team bosses have had a word.
There was also some pretty severe sideways movement from Hamilton as he came back past Russell when they fought for position after the restart – looked quite aggressive at the time, though I doubt anything would have come of it even in a race between different teams since there was no contact.
wooky
25th September 2023, 12:36
“To not only run another driver, but also yourself off the track in defence is generally frowned upon” except when Verstappen does it.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
25th September 2023, 12:39
I mean, I think everyone (except the Brazil GP stewards) accepted that was wrong at the time, didn’t they? That’s sort of the point.
SteveP
25th September 2023, 23:38
If only that were true.
I’m amazed that one of the Max fans hasn’t leapt in to argue the toss, after all, they all ‘know’ he can do no wrong.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th September 2023, 13:41
@red-andy unfortunately, every incident should always be reviewed by Verstappen incidents to be fair to the drivers – to be honest only about 5-10% of punishable incidents should get a penalty as a result of that.
In this day and era of blatant and completely uncensored favoritism, the question the stewards always need to ask themselves is “Would Max get a penalty if he had done the same thing?”. That’s the litmus test for being impartial.
PlosslF1
25th September 2023, 15:07
Is it even possible to overtake on the outside of spoon? When you think that the driver on the inside will naturally follow a line that takes you to the outside curb and no amount of turning left more help. If your gonna overtake at spoon it’s always on the inside.
MadMax (@madmax)
25th September 2023, 12:53
The difference to brazil is like miles, literally
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th September 2023, 13:22
I heard the number of championships, wins, and poles that Adrian Newey has during a race from Skysports commentators (Singapore I believe). Does someone have that information?
Does he have 200+ victories and 12 WCCs? I think he’s right behind Ferrari in terms of stats.
Congratulations to Red Bull and a standing ovation for Adrian Newey.
5
25th September 2023, 13:58
Williams 1991-1996 59 wins (’97 car also counts.) 4 DC, 5CC
McLaren 1997-2005 41 wins 2DC, 1 CC
RB 2006- 107 wins 7DC, 6 CC
So total 207 wins, 13 drivers (1 not won yet, but will we won by RB driver), and 12 constructors
Ferrari has 243 wins, 15 drivers, 16 constructors
So yes, Team Adrian Newey is right behind Ferrari.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th September 2023, 17:28
Thanks for the stats! The impact he’s had in F1 throughout his career is absolutely crazy when you consider that Ferrari took way over 32 years to achieve those stats and both Mercedes and Ferrari reached peak dominance during the Newey era costing him a lot of wins and championships.
someone or something
25th September 2023, 15:48
To be honest, I cannot comprehend why Hamilton went unpunished for his spoon curve block. I can see why running another car off the track is tolerated as long as the car on the outside isn’t significantly alongside the car in front. But if the car ahead is only in the position to hang the car on the outside out to dry like that by running off the track on its own, then that’s a clear-cut case of forcing another car off the track. At the very least, I was expecting the white-and-black for driving standards, because that was just dirty driving.
Didn’t matter at the end, but I was rather unimpressed with the Stewards’ approach of handing out only minimal penalties for egregious, race-ruining moves, if at all.
OOliver
25th September 2023, 16:06
Spoon curve is the wrongest place to attempt an overtake on another car with roughly equal performance, Cars naturally drift to the edge and you can’t change your line to make it tighter once committed.
Not every attempted pass round the outside is sensible even if the stewards have punished some drivers in the past in error for supposedly pushing drivers off track.
MichaelN
25th September 2023, 17:25
As part of the ‘let them race’ mindset that drives who the FIA appoints as stewards, incidents between teammates are pretty much ignored entirely. Even when that involves something like the Alpine double DNF in Australia.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
25th September 2023, 21:00
Which changed compared to the past, verstappen and ricciardo crashed in hungary 2017, I believe it was ricciardo who got taken out and verstappen got a penalty.
w0o0dy
25th September 2023, 16:10
I guess Toto put Russell’s nuts in the bankpress to make that statement.
Hamilton is a total hypocrite to first make a lot of theater about Max doing it and demanding a penalty and now using the tactics himself. And AMG Mercedes F1 is a cynical Hamilton fanclub and screws Russell over at every opportunity and will continue to do so until he leaves…
Jack
25th September 2023, 17:29
Pretty much how they treated Bottas. Bottas was only allowed to win when he qualified ahead of Hamilton and was clearly faster.
But even then Bottas was ordered to swap positions to let Hamilton win a few times.
lucifer (@lucifer)
26th September 2023, 16:10
not true
MadMax (@madmax)
26th September 2023, 6:59
Such a biased and wrong take of yours again. Your hate against Hamilton is pretty silly.
Russell just chose the wrong strategy. They even allowed him to hold Hamilton up, when he was much faster. Every team orders the slower driver to let the othee one overtake in such situations, but Merc tries hard to make Russell happy.
w0o0dy
26th September 2023, 17:28
No they try to maximize the results AFTER their favoritism for Lewis. It was in the news that Toto himself called in to tell Russell to back off and stop attacking Lewis… but hey, you can stick your head in the ground as much as you like.. I see things unfolding and feel Russell is going to be the lapdog untill Lewis retires.
MadMax (@madmax)
27th September 2023, 5:37
silly hate
w0o0dy
27th September 2023, 17:39
Facts.. since when is hate fuelled by facts?
OOliver
25th September 2023, 22:00
Lets face facts if Russell was on a one stop race he would always find himself ahead of Hamilton at some point in the race. It doesn’t mean either driver was faster than the other. If the team allows the driver who qualified behind his team mate to choose his own strategy then there will always be a big problem.
Had both drivers been on the same strategy, Russell would have stayed behind and all this noise would never have happened.
Gigantor (@kbdavies)
27th September 2023, 17:25
Indeed!