George Russell, Williams, Hungaroring, 2019

Russell believes Mercedes chance in 2020 is “very unlikely”

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In the round-up: George Russell says a chance for him to drive for Mercedes in the 2020 F1 season is unlikely but not impossible.

What they say

Russell is not expecting to get a call-up from Mercedes, as team principal Toto Wolff has previously said the choice will be between current driver Valtteri Bottas and reserve Esteban Ocon.

The fact is Mercedes keep an eye on everyone. The fact is between Valtteri, with Esteban, with myself we are the Mercedes drivers so it’s not… personally I’d say it’s very, very unlikely but everything’s always possible.

In Formula 1, this sport changes by the day and you’ve seen this always. I wouldn’t really like to say anything more than that, really.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

@Alec-glen puts forward another reason why Germany’s F1 race is under threat:

I think you need to look wider into Germany’s sporting culture and evaluate the product versus the price of entry in F1. F1 seems poor value to me when compared to equivalent events in both motorsport, F1 tickets are 10 times that of the WEC for instance, or football where they’ve decided they’d rather have full stadiums at cheaper ticket prices than follow the Premier League model.

There’s no simple answer either as F1’s business model has been built on exorbitant hosting fees and TV rights, both of which are negatively impacting the health of the sport and also preventing the major change Liberty require. I hope in Germany’s case that more exceptions can be made and that a sustainable event can be resuscitated but if an economic downturn is coming it may already be too late.
@Alec-glen

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On this day in F1

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29 comments on “Russell believes Mercedes chance in 2020 is “very unlikely””

  1. CoT definitely has a point. I used to live near Hockenheim, and after going to an ice hockey game with some friends, somebody suggested that we should go to an F1 race next. They quickly changed their minds when I told them how much it cost. I think most Germans are just too frugal to justify the price of attending an F1 race.

    1. Mixing frugality with value, f1 had the value, it has lost a lot of it in the past 10 years.

      1. @peartree I feel there is a difference between f1 value in itself and on-track value. I mean, F1 is still a lovely sport but then paying 120€ for a general entrance where you have to rush at 8am then hold on your meagre parcel with two stools all-day to have a remote look at distant screens and poor tracksite commenting is just too much. And paying 550€ for a gold entrance just allows you to have a reserved seat but got the same poor services is also too much. And everything else must be paid anyways. I did both but I’m not doing it again soon unfortunately, it’s very expensive for the experience imo.

  2. Check out the Pole Position lap and new track record at Twing Ring Motegi!

    I’m not sure if Super Formula uses the same track configuration as F1, but if it does then Alex’s time of 1:31.442 is very impressive. They say it is a new course record, so my guess is it does use the same configuration.
    As an aside, look at how easy it is to work out who’s driving the car: Car 64 – A Palou (Álex Palou Montalbo). Compare that to the average F1 car: Ummmm… arrghh …????. That sort of information easily seen by the camera inside the Super Formula car should be standard on every F1 car.

    1. @drycrust I dont think F1 has any history st Motegi to compare it to.

      1. At Motegi!

      2. @asanator Doh! Thanks. I completely misunderstood and thought the Super Formula Grand Prix was being held at Suzuka.

        1. @drycrust you literally quoted the name of the track though, not Suzuka lol.

    2. @drycrust, Motegi has not hosted a Formula 1 race, and I’m not sure if any F1 cars have even conducted any demonstration laps around the venue.

      The only major non-domestic racing series to use Motegi on a regular basis was IndyCar – they mainly used the oval circuit instead of the road course, but in 2011 they did use the road course configuration after the oval was damaged in an earthquake. In that single IndyCar race around the road course, the pole position lap was a 1:38.392.

  3. Mattia Binotto: “From the beginning we have always stressed that we are against standardisation (of technical components) and I feel that we are going too far in that direction. Why are we against it? Because we believe that the sport’s DNA is competition, and standardisation is conceptually against this spirit.”

    While it is blatantly obvious why the leader of one of the richest team makes such comment I think he also makes a good point. Standardization makes sense when do something to bring down costs. If everybody are using the same expensive method to make something and everybody does it and it doesn’t give any performance benefit then it makes sense to cut it out. Things like using helium on wheelguns just increased costs with no benefit to the sport for example. Standardizing that part doesn’t go against the dna of f1 car building because for relatively minor difference teams were spending tons of money. I read a figure that the guns cost 5k$ each, teams have 25 of them and with helium you’d need about 10 rebuilds every season. It just doesn’t make sense. And it is not even part of the car.

    For another example it is very different thing to standardize something like the refueling fuel pump for pitstops than it is to standardize the fuel tank in the car. A fast pitstop is part of f1 dna but f1 does not lose anything imho if the wheelguns use air or nitrogen as it only reduces costs with no detectable difference to the audience. It doesn’t change anything about the pitstop either. A standard fuel tank greatly shapes the car around it and is hardly a huge cost factor anyways. But even then it still makes no sense to use rare earth space materials to make a fuel just because you can. Making the materials less expensive doesn’t change the function of any parts. It is pure cost saving measure.

    But when you start standardizing designs instead of materials just to guarantee certain outcome it is a whole different ball game. Spec front wings and rear wings and spec monococques will obviously bring down costs but even with the very restrictive rules f1 teams are still allowed to build their own parts. As they have always had. Taking this away does change f1 dna massively. Allowing the teams to use only certain size discs of certain materials to make the brake rotors does not go against f1 dna like forcing the teams to use certain design. F1 is about working with your limitations to come up with your own solutions to problems. Material limitations are just that. Limitations. When you start adding spec parts you are no longer coming up with your own solutions and doing so under your limitations. You just take what is given and do the same thing everybody else does.

    1. Forgot to add that using standard ecus and other such things to guarantee that rules are followed is ok. Having everybody use the same standard part is smaller evil than blatant cheating where the fia has no chance make sure rules are followed.

    2. @socksolid mercedes who employ over 1000 people and RB who have 2 teams and Ferrari won’t stop spending the money, actually the fact that the giant Ferrari is much smaller than both mercedes and RB who has no engine department and 2 teams; shows that some teams are willing to spend far more than the avg team say a mclaren a williams, on elements that bring nothing to the sport. Cars looking different from one another is the key reason f1 is more popular than super formula as the latter beats f1 in everything that has to do with racing.

    3. Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
      21st August 2019, 8:46

      I feel Binotto attempts to argue his point but scores a big own goal. He comes across as arrogant and selfish. As a rule maker there are times when you should listen to a team but this is not one of them. Only the foolish would argue F1 is not too expensive. Everything possible must be done to bring down costs and allow smaller teams to be competitive. This is the only way new teams will enter and F1 will survive in good shape.

      The is no such thing as the “DNA” of F1 nor the the “spirit” of the rules. As such any arguments based on them are invalid and should be ignored. All that matters is the sport is competitive on track and affordable. From this good things will come.

      I’m not in favour of F1 becoming a spec series. I like to see different technical solutions, but not at any price. Lots of money is spent for tiny gains and this does not help the sport in the long term. Yes we will some amazing technical and engineering innovations but the racing needs to come first. Without that F1 is nothing.

  4. The steering wheel-shape of that Super Formula-car is strikingly similar to the one of Red Bull Racing as well as Toro Rosso, which for this season moved to the same design as the senior team.

    The initial plan seemed to be for next season’s British GP to take place at the end of June, but not anymore apparently. If the British GP were to take place on July 19 instead then I suspect the surrounding European rounds would be formed the following way:
    Austria June 28
    France July 5
    Britain July 19
    Hungary August 2, or if the Azerbaijan GP wouldn’t take place in June after all, but in September (or October) instead then France June 21
    Austria June 28
    Britain July 12
    Hungary, July 26.

  5. Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
    21st August 2019, 8:51

    Perhaps Mercedes should take a leaf out of Red Bulls book and put Ocon in for the first half of the season and put Russell in for the second.

  6. Alex Palou is really impressing in Super Formula. Hopefully he gets a chance in F2 next year.

  7. The fact Mercedes can’t decide between Bottas and Ocon suggests they actually want neither that much and need a third option. Russell’s comment just adds to that sense. Maybe he’d actually benefit the most from being alongside Hamilton – which in turn would be better for Mercedes.

    1. I think that if Ocon had been in F1 this season, it would be a much more obvious choice. But Ocon not being in F1 means he’d be somewhat out of practice, which when you’re going for a 7th consecutive WDC/WCC, isn’t really ideal.

    2. Or maybe Ocon and Bottas (and Russel) all have options/offers elsewhere and they are still deciding what contract to accept?

      1. Possible. Unlikely.

      2. If todays rumours are anything to go by it will be Ocon to Renault, on a 2 year deal, leaving Mercedes retaining Bottas for 2020 and Looking to promote Russell for 2021.

        1. J (@juliusbaxter)
          21st August 2019, 15:36

          …. to Renault instead of??

        2. @rob-b Which ‘today’s’ rumors? Nico Hulkenberg has said himself that he’s ‘most likely’ to remain at Renault even though nothing’s, of course, set in stone at the moment concerning either his, Ocon’s, nor Bottas’ short-term future in F1. Furthermore, if there’s any truth to the words of one former F1 team boss, then Ocon’s more likely to take Bottas’ place for next season than move to Renault, but we shall wait and see. My preference would be for both Bottas and Hulkenberg to remain where they are. As much as I hope Ocon to get back to a race-drive, I hope it wouldn’t come at the expense of either one of the other two mentioned. At least not if it meant one of them would be left without a drive at all.

          1. @rob-b Edit: I found what I assume you were referring to, and I presume it’s this: https://www.autobild.de/artikel/formel-1-transfer-news-15474089.html

  8. Other than the chassis, some the flaps on it and the livery, nothing on a F1 car makes enough of a difference to the sport or the spectacle of it to justify making the sport a boring accountancy competition by giving an unsurmountable advantage to teams that have big budgets, imho.

    The helium wheel guns, software engineering, or even more obvious things perhaps like gearboxes and suspension. What do they really add to the sport and spectacle of racing? Heck, one could argue that standardized wings and diffusers to create better racing are worth considering if ‘close racing’ is the main objective.

    I understand Ferrari wanting to protect their competitive edge over their competition (having more money than other teams and therefore the potential to build a better car), but I just don’t think FOM should necessarily listen to them.

  9. I’d assume Russell’s best chance of stealing the Mercedes drive from under Ocon and Bottas lies with Albon. If he performs pretty well at Red Bull then Russell can sit there pointing out that he beat that guy, and it makes a pretty good advert for his abilities. I’m sure if Mercedes came knocking on his door he’d not turn them down.

  10. That Honda engine (2.0l 4-cylinder turbocharged) in the SuperFormula video sounds much better than the F1 PowerUnits despite… Well, my Honda CRV at 4.000 rpm sounds better than de F1 engines.

  11. What does mean exactly is “against standardization”? Is it a veto threat?

Comments are closed.