George Russell will be sanctioned and Mercedes seeks answers: “It was a stupid decision”
The F1 world title is more than decided. Kimi Antonelli has an 84-point lead over his teammate George Russell after the umpteenth reliability failure that punished the Englishman. And as they say, “a weak dog is all fleas.” And so it will be for George who will be forced to make the engine change that his teammate Kimi already did in Baku, this time in Singapore, something that will cost him a penalty that will make him start from the back on a circuit where it is extremely difficult to overtake.
Russell is ‘sold’ this weekend. He knows it. And for this reason, he wanted to help the team with a proposal that the pilot acknowledged came from him. In Sepang, it was surprising that the evolution presented by Mercedes, focused on improving the performance of the rear, did not work.
Toto Wolff, team leader, even said that it was a step backwards, that the car had worsened in different areas in Sepang and that they were even slower on the straight due to greater resistance to progress.
It was very strange, because evolution was expected to contribute several tenths. They went from Russell’s pole position with 8 tenths of an advantage in Baku, a track with long straights, to being far away, half a second behind Kimi Antonelli from pole sitter Verstappen in the Bahrain GP in Malaysia, with Russell more than seven tenths behind.
However, that performance occurred on a very rough asphalt, with very little grip, something that Mercedes believes did not allow them to understand if the package did not improve the car or if it was something specific that occurred on that track. And for this reason, George proposed himself as a guinea pig to carry the previous package, the one they took from Canada to Baku, in Sepang this weekend. The objective is to compare the performance of the evolutions that Kimi will carry and that previous package that Russell will carry to have much clearer answers.
“This engine penalty this weekend has given us a good opportunity to go back. It’s the car I won with in Baku,” he confirmed.
“Actually, I was the one who started the conversation before the race on Sunday. When the ruling occurred, it was a hard decision, because before the race we were more or less 50 to 50 and I was more in favor of doing it (carry the old parts specification), even before the race. “Now it’s a totally easy decision.”he argued at a press conference, as reported by the ‘Motorsport.com’ portal.
This engine penalty this weekend has given us a good opportunity to go back. It’s the car I won with in Baku
“There is no sign to tell us that the improvement was not working, and we know that the car we had in Baku was the same one we had in Budapest and Zandvoort. In Baku we took pole by eight tenths and in Budapest we were four tenths off the pace. Those fluctuations, even with a constant car and with your rivals using the same car, are enormous. You can have a variation of more or less a second. That may be the margin. So we’re pretty convinced it was something specific to Malaysia“George commented.
There is no sign to tell us that the upgrade was not working. When you also look at Red Bull’s pace, it’s clear that they performed above what they had done this season.
“When you also look at Red Bull’s pace, it is clear that they performed above what they had done this season, compared to all other teams. “If you look at our pace compared to McLaren and Ferrari, it wasn’t very different and we weren’t massively out of position.”added George, who believes that it was more a merit of Red Bull than a demerit of the new Mercedes parts.
However, George wants to offer relevant data to Mercedes this weekend to understand this evolution, something key especially for the development of the 2027 concept.
Antonelli believes that Sepang was not representative
Kimi Antonelliwhich will carry the new pieces that premiered in Sepangwas optimistic and believes that the asphalt and potholes of Sepang gave a wrong image of these evolutions.
The numbers told us a different story in Sepang, but I think it was a bit of an exception because the asphalt was very bumpy and the track temperatures were high. Sepang will be a good test
“The numbers told us a different story in Sepang, but I think it was a bit of an exception because the asphalt was very bumpy. In fact, in some curves we were missing asphalt. Plus, it was very hot. At some moments we had more than 60 degrees of temperature on the track. So I think it was a bit of an exception and, without a doubt, I feel that this weekend is going to be more representative,” said the F1 World Championship leader in statements published by the ‘Motorsport.com’ portal.
“With lower track temperatures and asphalt in much better condition, I think it will be a very good test because in Sepang we suffered a lot in the low speed corners and here we have many. So we’ll see what happens.”added the Italian.
“We will have two different cars with two different packages. It will be interesting to see how we can make a direct comparison in that sense. I think there really is an improvement (with the new parts), but we simply couldn’t see it in Sepang. That’s why it was such a big exception,” he concluded, hopeful that the evolutions will bear fruit in Singapore.
