Several of George Russell’s rivals said they agree with his criticism of the quality of Formula 1 racing.
Following last weekend’s race in Austin the Mercedes driver said F1 is too “processional” and grands prix have become “a race to turn one.”
His team mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli said the combination of turbulent air behind other cars, the narrowing performance gaps between teams and reduced tyre degradation is making overtaking too difficult.
“Definitely as a driver you feel massively the difference when you’re driving in clean air or in dirty air,” he explained. “I think also because Pirelli has improved the tyre, the tyre is more robust, it allows you to do longer stints, so there’s less degradation. Also with the pace of the cars being so close it’s really hard to generate a pace advantage.
“Even if you have a couple of tenths [of a second] on the car in front, it’s very difficult to be able to overtake. I remember in Singapore, Charles [Leclerc] was having some issues, and because of that I had a big pace advantage. And still I did 40-something laps behind him.
“Okay, Singapore is not the easiest track to overtake on, but it was really hard to follow close. So I think it’s difficult, and that’s why quali and lap one is super-important.”
Nico Hulkenberg agreed Russell has “got a point” with his criticism. “It is very track position [dependent]. Clean air is king, it’s so powerful.”
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F1 overhauled its aerodynamic regulations in 2022 with the goal of allowing cars to follow together more closely. But Hulkenberg said that improvement has been eroded as teams have improved their cars’ performance.
“It reminds me of the past a little bit in some ways,” he admitted. “Year-on-year from ’22, ’23, ’24 and so on it has gone worse and worse and now it is very difficult. It sometimes makes for static racing. So yes, quali is very important and it is a race to turn one.”
Williams driver Carlos Sainz Jnr agreed with his rivals’ assessment and said F1 needs to be more proactive to stop the deterioration in the quality of racing.
“In ’22 I remember it was really easy to follow. You were almost, in some tracks, better off being behind than in front for the DRS. I remember in Jeddah, Bahrain, there were a lot of on-track battles.
“Now the cars have developed into being very difficult to follow. At the same time, you add the fact that the tyres have become more robust, less degradation [makes it] more difficult to achieve any kind of tyre delta that allows you to overtake.
“So when the two patterns go in favour of less racing and less racing action, you end up with one-stop boring races that we’re tending to have more this year.
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“As F1, I think we just need to try and be a step ahead of that and try and predict when that’s going to be the case and maybe work with Pirelli or the teams to know what can we do to make sure that the races remain always on the limit of the one-stop [strategy], to at least have some kind of tyre delta. Or maybe do something with the rule tweaks, maybe to extend the DRS zones a bit.
“But I always feel like in F1 we are chasing rather than trying to be a step ahead of what’s happening on-track.”
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