George Russell highlights cause behind ‘bad racing’ with ‘boring’ complaints made

George Russell said tyres were playing a factor in races becoming too predictable but also defended supplier Pirelli for the unwinnable situation they are in.

The United States Grand Prix was another race where strategy variance was minimal with only a handful of drivers stopping on more than one occasion.

George Russell says tyre to blame for ‘bad racing’

Throughout the year we have seen numerous races become processional as drivers are unable to overtake each other and following the US GP which again saw a small amount of overtakes, Russell said races were being decided in the opening lap.

“I made a good start but when Max covered Lando, I thought the normal thing to do would be for him to go to the outside to protect his position,” Russell told media including PlanetF1.com. “And in turn, he didn’t.

“He just stayed behind Max, he got overtaken, and it blocked me in, and I got overtaken. So that was quite frustrating, but I had the feeling before the race, wherever you finish Turn 1 is where you’re going to finish and unfortunately, this turned out to be the case.

“Maybe I could have finished P3 but the thing is, now, when there’s no tyre degradation, there’s no tyre delta between the fastest car and the slowest car, and top six, there’s maybe two tenths or three tenths.

“And every track we go to, you need at least half a second to overtake, so that’s why you’re not seeing any overtakes. And I don’t remember the last two-stop race, to be honest.”

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Many have also pointed towards the tyres being behind the less exciting races with Austin becoming a one-stopper and limiting strategy options. Russell said he cannot even remember the last time two pit stops were required.

“I think Pirelli get a hard time,” he said. “No matter what, 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.’

“Then, when there’s no tyre degradation, we say it’s a boring race. They don’t seem to be able to win in any case.

“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 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 there’s 12 laps, the medium tyre there’s 15 laps, and the hard tyre there’s 20 laps, and then it falls off the cliff.

“But that is a lot easier said than done. As I said, Pirelli get a very hard time.

“They do their best, and they have given us a substantially better tyre. This tyre is very good, but it causes bad racing.”

Others have said a sprint race also reduces the chance of a surprise as teams get enough data to predict the race but Russell said that was not too big of a factor.

“All of the races recently been one stops, and even from a sprint race yesterday, the Ferrari couldn’t overtake Carlos [Sainz]. Years ago, that would not have been the case.

“I don’t really know, I think it’s just lack of tyre deg.”

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