George Russell criticised the current state of Formula 1, deeming “it’s a race to Turn 1” after his struggle to make progress during the United States Grand Prix.
Just one round ago in Singapore, Russell stood on the top step, earning his fifth win. However, at the Circuit of the Americas, Mercedes did not have the speed.
The Brit qualified in fourth place, but fell to sixth at the start, where he remained for the entirety of the race, despite sticking in close proximity to Oscar Piastri.
Despite tyre degradation being a talking point pre-race, the front-runners all completed a one-stop strategy with ease, which made it difficult to make progress.
Following the race, speaking to Sky Sports, the Mercedes driver gave his criticism of the current state of racing in F1. “Right now in F1, it’s a race to Turn 1,” he said.
“There’s no tyre degradation, there’s only three tenths between the quickest car and the slowest car in the top six.
“Normally, you need at least half a second to overtake, so if I came out of Turn 1 in P3, I’d have been on the podium today. But instead I came out in P6 and I finished P6.”
With tyres lasting longer, it’s infrequent to see drivers having multiple pit stops or fighting with a big tyre delta. Russell highlighted it as one of the biggest hindrances to overtaking.
“The thing is, now when there’s no tyre degradation, there’s no tyre delta,” he added.
“Every track we go to, you need at least half a second to overtake, so that’s why you’re not seeing any overtakes. I don’t even remember the last two-stop race.”
The current tyres make for a ‘boring race’
However, Russell reserved his critique of Pirelli, admitting that it has been trying to make the product better, but that has subsequently made them worse for racing.
“Pirelli get a hard time no matter what,” he acknowledged. “There’s lots of tyre degradation, people say it’s not real, the drivers can’t push, we have to manage, we don’t like that when there’s no tyre degradation, we say it’s a boring race, we want to see.
“But they don’t seem to be able to win in any case, so realistically you want a tyre that you can push full gas, but it doesn’t go the whole race.
“If you could choose the tyre, it’s a tyre you can go flat out, but after 15 laps it falls off a cliff and you have to do a two or three-stop race.
“Ideally, the Soft tyre does 12 laps, the Medium tyre does 15 laps, and the Hard tyre does 20 laps, and then it falls off the cliff. But that is a lot easier said than done.
“Pirelli get a very hard time, they do their best, they have given us a substantially better tyre, like this tyre is very good, but it causes bad racing.”
When Russell looked at his opportunities for the final rounds of the season, he saw them with pessimism, his focus on trying to qualify as far forward as possible.
“Qatar and Vegas realistically are our two best shots, but again, it all just comes down to the lap in qualifying,” he assessed.
“If you do a really strong lap and you’re on the front row you can hold the position and if you don’t, it’s going to be the same in Mexico. So, it’s going to come down to Q3 and the race.”
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