Racing
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George Russell has flatly rejected Max Verstappen’s criticism of Formula 1’s new regulations, arguing the latest cars can produce closer racing and need only minor fine-tuning rather than a rethink.
In an interview with BBC Sport, the Mercedes driver said he “totally disagree[s]” with Verstappen’s view after the Red Bull driver compared the new rules to Formula E and Mario Kart and suggested his own future could depend on whether major changes are made.
Russell took the opposite position. He said he is “really enjoying the car” and believes the package already offers “more opportunity to really fight and have close races.” While he accepted that the power unit and engine feel different, he said the concept itself is not the problem. “It just needs some fine-tuning” to work at its best, he said.
That put him at odds not only with Verstappen, but also with Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris, who were described as highly critical of the new direction.
Russell pushed back especially hard on the Mario Kart label. Referring to a point made by Lewis Hamilton, he said repeated overtaking should not be treated as something artificial. “In a kart race, you overtake somebody in one corner, he gets you back, and then you get him back. Nobody ever calls that Mario Kart or yo-yo racing or whatever term. We call that just pure racing; good racing.”
He also dismissed the idea that drivers are simply sacrificing corner speed to gain straight-line performance. “Everybody who thinks drivers are going slower through the corners to be faster on the straights is wrong,” Russell said, describing some of the complaints as a misunderstanding of how the new cars work.
Russell did acknowledge that the rules have brought “a few small quirks,” but said the FIA has been working to remove them. He pointed to tweaks coming in from the next race, which he said would make life easier for drivers by allowing them to run flat out on the straights in qualifying rather than lifting to manage energy.
He argued that nostalgia has also distorted the reaction to the regulations. Looking back at the Formula 1 he watched around 20 years ago, Russell said the sound of the engines was memorable, but the racing often was not. “That was maybe the purest Formula 1 we’ve ever seen. But the races were boring,” he said, adding that people tend to remember the positives of the past while focusing only on the negatives of the present.
To underline that point, Russell recalled speaking to a multiple race winner from the 1980s and 1990s who told him drivers then had a boost button worth 300 hp, but could be left short of fuel at the end of the straight once they lifted off. For Russell, that was proof that unusual trade-offs in energy and performance are not new to Formula 1, even if the current version looks different.
His argument is that the sport does not need to abandon the new regulations before they have fully settled. From his perspective, the foundations are already there for tighter battles, and the next round of FIA adjustments should move the cars closer to that target.