[Official] Canadian Grand Prix 2024

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Adam43

I guess it always been like Mr Paddock then.

Touché

[BTCC frog]

In 2020, it seemed to me that George Russell was, similarly to Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari, consistently qualifying his car well above its natural position in the pecking order and then falling back to that position in the race. 2021 was a similar story for Russell in the Williams. But the Mr Saturday nickname, which I only remember from David Croft and Ted Kravitz and occasionally other fans, always seemed to be in praise of his qualifying efforts, consistently dragging the Williams into Q2 ahead of the faster Alfa Romeos and Haases, rather than suggesting it was his fault he went backwards in the races. I think it is more difficult for a better driver to finish a race ahead of faster cars than it is to qualify ahead of them and they naturally fall backwards in the races, as we have seen a few times this year and last year with Nico Hulkenberg, and this year with Esteban Ocon, while the likes of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll who often qualify badly are able to make up the places more easily in the races when their car advantage is more obvious. Granted, Russell did sometimes fluff the race starts and go backwards more quickly, but the one start that year that really mattered, in Sakhir, he absolutely nailed, and the trend of bad starts at Williams has not at all continued into his Mercedes years.

In terms of Russell making mistakes under pressure, I think he is perhaps slightly worse than the other top drivers but not by much. Russell crashed behind the safety car in Imola 2020, hit Bottas in Imola 2021, and then hit the wall in Canada 2023 and Singapore 2023. Charles Leclerc has made more costly errors, I believe in France 2022 he became the first driver since Alonso in Canada 2005 to crash out of the lead, unassisted, in dry conditions. Lando Norris gained a bit of a reputation for fluffing qualifying laps last year despite having the pace. Max Verstappen seems very error free nowadays, but when he was a bit less experienced he had that awful start to 2018 that was littered with errors. Russell made three errors in Canada to the one each of Norris and Verstappen, although the third was just an overly aggressive move on Piastri which didn't come off, while his similarly aggressive attempt on Hamilton was executed to perfection. But I think that these errors are something that can be phased out by Russell, as they were for Verstappen and seemingly now for Leclerc and Norris.

For those who don't rate George Russell, I would be interested to read an analysis of exactly how you think Hamilton can have dropped so far off the pace to be beaten by him. Mark Hughes explained how Hamilton's drop in form is partly due to the Mercedes not suiting his driving style, as Hamilton likes to brake very late and then turn in without locking up but the Mercedes understeers too much for him to do this, while it could partly be age, but he also accepted that Russell is also among the best drivers and so Hamilton doesn't have to totally collapse to end up behind him.

I think the current grid is a particularly strong one, as with Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc, Russell, Hamilton, Alonso, Sainz and Piastri, I can't think of many better lists of top drivers since 1967 (Clark, Stewart, Hill, Surtees, Gurney, Rindt, Brabham, Hulme). Verstappen has gained a reputation for destroying average teammates; Norris demolished Daniel Ricciardo in two totally different McLarens; Leclerc beat Vettel in his first season with Ferrari and then destroyed him in the second; Russell has effectively matched a seven-time champion in Hamilton over three seasons as teammates. Meanwhile Piastri and Sainz have got close to their top-line teammates. But Lando Norris is the driver who I think is the closest challenger to Max Verstappen at the moment, and I find it interesting that in both Imola and Montreal, he seemed to drop away initially but kept his tyres in shape and hunted down Verstappen, once successfully (before getting unlucky with the safety car, payback for Miami which was the other way around), and once falling just short.