Hamilton will “come back” stronger – Russell
George Russell says he has “no doubts” Lewis Hamilton will “come back stronger” this season, backing his Mercedes team-mate after a difficult start and praising his “truly inspiring” work behind the scenes.
As Mercedes struggles to understand its 2022 car it has been Russell who has maximised results, which has put him fourth in the championship twenty-one points ahead of Hamilton. But just as Mercedes and Hamilton himself are insistent that F1’s most successful driver will bounce back, Russell also sees no reason to worry.
Russell told Sky Sports, “Lewis has clearly got the pace. He’s incredibly fast and he’s showed that so far this year, but it’s just been tricky for us as a team to get it done when the time is needed. When things have been more stable, Lewis has still been massively fast.”
“I know there was a bit of a blip last weekend but I have no doubt he’s going to come back and the way he’s pushing the team and motivating the team is truly inspiring.” The feeling of both Mercedes drivers is they are not happy with their current position.
Russell finished fourth at Imola, while Hamilton came home a point-less thirteenth. But Russell put the difference down to his strong start to Sunday’s race and a car that was a “nightmare to drive”. He says they are struggling equally saying when the car is out of the window didn’t feel like a racing car.
Expanding on why he was possibly faring better, Russell said: “Perhaps with my struggles at Williams, with very difficult cars, maybe that’s helped in some small regard. But Lewis will come back stronger, I have no doubt. He’s definitely going to be pushing me all the way.”
For Mercedes CEO and team principal Toto Wolff, who masterminded and managed Russell’s career, the impressive start by him has repaid his faith. The Austrian is impressed with how Russell has settled in.
He says the driver lineup is “one of the very few highlights I have at the moment on our journey – how the two of them work together with no friction.”
Mercedes struggles not due to ‘brain drain’
Mercedes CEO and team principal Toto Wolff doesn’t believe the team’s current struggles are linked to a ‘brain drain’ of its top talent. The German manufacturer has had its worst start to the season in the hybrid era, with porpoising problems leaving it unable to run the W13 in the configuration it was designed to.
The difficult start to the season has already left them on the back foot in the championship with its situation as it struggles with its car, they know they need a quick turnaround if they are going to challenge Red Bull and Ferrari this season. It has also led to suggesters that the departure of Andy Cowell and technical director James Allison moving to a new role, that the dip in form could be linked to it losing the input from key brains.
But Wolff does not back such a stance and reckons that any personnel changes that Mercedes has experienced are part of the standard turnover that all teams go through. The Austrian told Motorsport.com, “It’s just the normal cycle. Ross [Brawn] left, then Paddy [Lowe] left. We won six championships after that, or seven. Then James Allison came in, and there’s a lot of others who aren’t front and centre.”
“Then Andy [Cowell] retired. But meanwhile, all the young guys are coming up, and they’ve been the decision-makers at the operational level time and time again, as far as the cars in the last few years are concerned. We haven’t lost anyone … It’s just the normal rate of change.”
While Mercedes may not have that experienced heads on tap, Wolff thinks there is a huge positive to be had from the injection of youth that is evident at the team right now. Wolff says the thing which impresses him at their Brackley base is the young, highly motivated and educated workforce who don’t want to leave things how they are.
This also puts Wolff in a positive frame of mind, saying he couldn’t have a better team around him.
While Mercedes’ championship hopes look slim, with there being quite a big performance gap between its car and the front-runners, Wolff is not yet ready to throw in the towel on the titles. Adding “the gap we’re now opening up is certainly difficult to make up, but if we manage to put this car reasonably straight on the track, then we’ll be among the front runners with this car: as grim as that may look today.”
Alonso motivated to remain in F1
Fernando Alonso says he remains motivated to continue in F1 “because I feel better than the others” and would stop if someone beat him on “pure abilities”. The two-time champion returned to the sport last year with Alpine, scoring his first podium since 2014 in Doha.
He was left frustrated by poor luck so far this year, believing he could have been in contention for pole in Australia. At forty, Alonso is the oldest driver on the F1 grid but has already signalled that he will look to extend his stay in the series beyond the end of the year when his Alpine contract expires.
In Melbourne and Imola, Alonso suffered bad luck with a hydraulic failure in qualifying before contact at Imola with Mick Schumacher on the opening lap left him with damage which ultimately ended his race.
But Alonso showed no sign that the frustrating start to the year was making him think twice about his future in F1. Asked by Motorsport.com, what kept him motivated to continue in F1 given his recent poor luck, Alonso replied: “Because I feel better than the others. When someone comes and I see that [they are] beating me on pure abilities, I see that I’m not good anymore at the starts.”
“I’m not good in preparing the car, or the other side of the garage is one second faster than me and I cannot match those times, maybe I’ll raise my hand and say: ‘You know, this is time for me you know to think about something else’.” He still says he loves racing.
Alonso’s teammate Esteban Ocon has scored twenty points compared to his two, he admitted his tally was “painful” to see given his poor luck at times. Ocon has a long-term contract in place with the team that runs to the end of the 2024 season.
The team also has reserve driver Oscar Piastri, who won last year’s F2 title, looking to secure a drive in F1 next season. Alpine has already indicated that it would be open to loaning Piastri out to another team on the condition it could get him back.
No pressure on Haas despite growth in the US – Steiner
Haas team principal Gunther Steiner doesn’t think there is more pressure on the team as it continues its expansion in the United States. Boosted by the success of the Netflix Drive to Survive series, F1 has been eager to capitalise on the increased attention it enjoys in the US.
From next season there will be three races in the country Austin, Miami and Las Vegas as the popularity of the sport grows. Haas based in North Carolina and Oxfordshire has yet to capitalise on the boom, it hasn’t attracted a US driver or sponsor, beyond team owner Gene Haas.
In 2021 the team’s car was draped in the colours of the Russian flag to reflect the Uralkali backing of driver Nikita Mazepin, with both disappearing from the team following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Asked by Motorsport.com if there is more pressure on the team from Formula 1’s executives to showcase its American identity more, team principal Steiner says that is not the case, although he hopes the increased American interest will also benefit his team soon in the form of new sponsors.
He said “No, there is not a lot more pressure from above, and there doesn’t need to be. We would like to be more involved, and we are working on some stuff also in the United States, but it takes a little bit of time.”
“I think this boom in the US in Formula One has started I would say last year, or maybe two years ago, last year it started to get really traction, so it will take a little bit of time to get it all going for the team as well.”
2026 the last chance to enter say Volkswagen
Volkswagen says the planned entry of its Porsche and Audi brands in 2026 could be the last chance in a decade for it to enter the sport. The German manufacturer has been pushing on with its F1 plans, and said recently in an official statement that a final green light to make the move would come after F1’s new engine regulations for 2026 were finalised.
In a video released on YouTube on Monday where CEO Herbert Diess was answering questions from people in Wolfsburg, where the company is based, he revealed how advanced the company is with its preparations.
Speaking openly about F1, Diess said that the boom that Grand Prix racing was enjoying in key markets like the US. Also the new engine regulations due to be introduced in 2026 would present an opportunity which wouldn’t repeat itself for a while.
He said, “Formula 1 is developing extremely positively worldwide. The marketing that is happening there, plus Netflix, has led to Formula 1’s following growing significantly in the U.S. as well.”
“Asia is growing significantly, including among young customer groups. If you look at the major sporting events or events in the world, it’s the case that in motorsport, it’s really only Formula 1 that counts and is becoming increasingly differentiated. If you do motorsport, you should do Formula 1 as that’s where the impact is greatest.”
Diess also believes that you cannot enter F1 unless the technology window opens up, believing that if you were joining a few years after a regulation change it would take five to ten years to catch up. Put simply “You can’t enter Formula 1 unless a technology window opens up which means, in order to get in there, a rule change: so that everyone starts again from the same place.”
He said that the direction of the 2026 engines you need to three or four years to develop a new engine. Diess confirmed that the VW name would not be a part of the company’s F1 plans, with instead both Porsche and Audi were committed to enter F1 separately.
Porsche has been linked to a tie-up with Red Bull, but he said the company’s plans were more ‘concrete’ than Audi, which has not yet settled on a partner. He said the long term analysis suggested it was a ‘no brainier’ with the analysis showing that the F1 programmes could help deliver a profit for the two car companies.
Diess added, “Porsche has to be the sportiest car brand in the world, so Porsche has to do motorsport. And you come to the conclusion: if Porsche does motorsport, the most efficient thing is to do Formula One. You almost have to put a checkmark on that.
He added: “Audi is a much weaker brand than Porsche. It can’t demand such a high price premium. Audi actually has the better case for Formula One because it has much greater potential for the brand.”
While Diess says that an F1 entry for Porsche and Audi makes complete sense, he has revealed that not everyone on the VW Board is supportive at a time when the car industry is going through a transformation amid the shift to electric vehicles.
He says that the board was not unanimous, saying that all we have to be able to drive autonomously, we need the software capabilities, we need batteries for our cars. We have enough to do and we don’t really need to do F1.
“Important to stay” with Philip Morris – Ferrari
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes it was “important to stay together” with long-standing sponsor Philip Morris International despite changes to their partnership. The Italian manufacturers’ relationship with the tobacco giant goes back to the 1980s, with PMI brand Marlboro serving as the team’s title sponsor from 1997 until early 2008.
However the ban on tobacco advertising in Europe, Australia and North America over the last fifteen years has meant Marlboro branding had to be dropped from the car, but PMI revised its title sponsorship of the team through its Mission Winnow initiative that was launched in 2018 with a view to a non-tobacco future.
Mission Winnow was dropped from both Ferrari’s official entry name and the car’s sponsorship ahead of the 2022 season, as well as disappearing from the team’s sponsor deck earlier this year when the agreement expired. But it was revealed ahead of the Australian Grand Prix that Mission Winnow had returned as an official Ferrari team partner.
Speaking to Motorsport.com about the new agreement with PMI, Binotto felt it was important to maintain the long-running relationship, even if the nature of the agreement had changed.
Binotto said, “It’s important to know that it has been a long partnership with Philip Morris, and we are very proud of it, and very happy that it’s still lasting. That was the intention of the two parties because after so many years, it was important to stay together.”
“Yes, it has changed a bit in the way the partnership is set up, without going into too many details. But in the end, it’s more important to make sure that it was continued.”
As the team’s title partner, Mission Winnow’s green logo ran on the engine cover of Ferrari’s cars at select events last year, but was removed for all races in Europe.
Ahead of this season, Ferrari announced that Spanish bank Santander had returned as a premium partner, along with Shell, blockchain network Velas, and technology brand Snapdragon.
This week is expected to be a key commercial race for all F1 teams, building on the series’ current boom in the United States.
“No comfort” for McLaren with Imola podium
McLaren says there is “no comfort” from its return to the podium at Imola, because it knows just how competitive its midfield rivals are this year. Following the nightmare of testing and the opening race in Bahrain, the team bounced back with a strong weekend in Melbourne with Lando Norris scoring his first podium of the season at the following race at Imola.
But with Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alpine all showing flashes of great potential so far this season, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl is cautious about believing his squad is ready to emerge as the head of the chasing back behind Red Bull and Ferrari. He said the conclusion that the car was working well with different layouts was positive.
Seidl told Motorsport.com, “But, at the same time, if you look at the field where it is very close between the Mercedes, us, Valtteri [Bottas], and Kevin [Magnussen], there’s no comfort in what we are seeing now in the last few weekends.”
Although staying realistic about where McLaren stands, Seidl does at least feel that the team can target consistent Q3 performance and a decent chunk of points from each weekend.
Adding, “I’m never too confident because I know that the machinery in this paddock with all teams is not standing still, but I am confident that we have a car and a package which is able at each weekend at the moment to fight for Q3 and fight for good points. And that goes together with a strong team and two strong drivers.”
Seidl says that wasn’t just about lap time, but putting the whole weekend together, complimenting the team on how they pulled off the weekend at Imola despite challenges. But he was hugely encouraged by the way the team knuckled down after struggling in Bahrain to get itself back into contention.
Adding, “It was great to see for me how the team was dealing with the challenge of the Bahrain race weekend, and how everyone stayed calm and united and simply kept their head down and kept working together as one team through it.”
