Russell thought first win by Monaco was likely before season began

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In the round-up: George Russell admits he would likely have been “disappointed” not to have won his first race by the Monaco Grand Prix before the season began

In brief

Russell expected first win by Monaco GP

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After moving from Williams to Mercedes, winners of the last eight constructors’ championships, Russell had high hopes of scoring his first win within the opening seven races. However the team has lacked the performance of rivals Red Bull and Ferrari, leaving both Russell and Lewis Hamilton yet to win this year.

“I think if you told me prior to the season that we’d be seven races in and I wouldn’t have a victory to my name, I would have definitely been a bit disappointed with that,” Russell admitted.

“But I think given the pace of the car and given where we’ve been as a team, I’ve been reasonably pleased with how I’ve performed. I think the results have been maximised. I don’t see many races where we could have achieved better results.

“I want to fight for this championship. And when we’ve got to go against the likes of Max [Verstappen] at Red Bull and obviously Charles [Leclerc] is doing an extra extremely good job at the moment with Ferrari. But as a team, we just need to keep on pushing, I need to keep on pushing personally.”

IndyCar to introduce renewable bio-ethanol based fuel in 2023

IndyCar has announced it will move to a renewable, bio-ethanol based fuel from next year onwards, in a partnership with Shell.

The fuel will be a second-generation biofuel, meaning that rather than from corn or sugar or other food-grade stocks, the ethanol is produced from other sources. These generally include waste products like agricultural by-products such as the stalks and chaff from grain or waste products and woody foliage that would otherwise be composted.

IndyCar’s release says that moving to this bio-ethanol based fuel will result in roughly a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to fossil fuel.

Cordeel narrowly avoids race ban with reprimand

Formula 2 driver Amaury Cordeel avoided being banned for this weekend’s Monaco races after the stewards handed him a reprimand for a pit lane.

The Van Amersfoort driver has amassed 11 penalty points on his licence over just seven races to start the 2022 Formula 2 season, leaving him one away from an automatic one round ban. After clipping a stack of front wings held in the garage of the Charouz team with his car while returning to his pit box during qualifying, Cordeel was placed under investigation by the stewards for driving in an unsafe manner in the pitlane.

However, after investigating the incident, the stewards determined that while clipping the equipment could have resulted in a dangerous situation, it had not on this occasion. The stewards also took into account the uncommonly tight pit lane in Monaco, choosing to hand Cordeel a reprimand, rather than a direct penalty.

Cordeel will start today’s sprint race from 18th on the grid.

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Comment of the day

With Sergio Perez proving to be closer to Max Verstappen’s level of performance in his second season in Red Bull, @frood19 cannot help but wonder how some of his predecessors may have fared if given more time…

I’m a fan of Perez, ever since his exploits in the 2012 Sauber, and I think he is doing a very good job this year (look at where he is in the title race, you can’t fluke that). But his solid performance this year does make me wonder what Gasly et al could have done if they were given the assurance and backing Perez received after a mediocre debut season with Red Bull.
@frood19

Happy birthday!

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On this day in motorsport

Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Monaco, 2017
Sebastian Vettel won in Ferrari today in 2017 after Kimi Raikkonen led the early laps

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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9 comments on “Russell thought first win by Monaco was likely before season began”

  1. PeterG
    28th May 2022, 0:23

    Indycar’s are still far too prone to getting airborn.

    It was an issue that became commonplace in the IRL formula and one which has continued on post split.

    In CART/Champcar whenever a car got airborn there was a valid reason for it, Usually wheel to wheel contact. With the IRL and post split cars they take off far more often and at times for no apparent reason. And even if there is a reason such as wheel to wheel contact they seem to lift easier than was ever the case before and sometimes lift slightly, come down only to take off again despite no additional contact.

    It’s something they need to take more seriously and get on top of because since the split in 1996 far too many cars have taken off with far too many going into the catch fencing.

    1. amian
      28th May 2022, 13:41

      How would the car not get airborne if most of the mass is at the back – making the front very light – and the car has a HUGE flat surface underneath? Oh, and that surface is travelling at over 350km/h.
      When the car gets crushed in the wall, it humps over the damaged pieces and naturally all the air goes under it. There’s no way of avoiding it. Those cars don’t get airborne in any other way.

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    Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
    28th May 2022, 1:24

    Gplaps got featured on RF, his channel is growing quickly at the moment, f1 is booming, even your typical youtubers are now exploiting f1 with that scuba video.
    F1 is mainstream, what a world we live in.
    The only reason Perez is just embarrassing this season, instead of far worse is down to this years RB, we never know who is going to stand out when a new formula is presented but I never thought these cars would suit Max as much as the old cars did.
    Funny gaffe but I can excuse that gaffe on the corner name, a mix of linguistics and something…2 french words but one that happens to also mean the same in English and the fact that nobody refers to nouvelle chicane as just nouvelle therefore one can easily end up saying the chicane then remember that it is the nouvelle and say, at nouvelle in order to clarify which chicane it is and also end up omitting the word chicane from the end to not repeat the word. Hey regardless it is a new chicane he came up with.

  3. Profile Photo

    petebaldwin (@)
    28th May 2022, 2:46

    I actually think it’s a good thing for Russell that the Mercedes has been a bit off the pace. It’s taken a lot of pressure off of him and it removes any need for anyone to worry about who is the number 1 & 2 driver. He can ease his way into the team and once Merc get in top of their issues (and we all know it’ll happen – this year or next) he’ll be ready to fight for wins.

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    Red Andy (@red-andy)
    28th May 2022, 6:47

    I know some people complain about the penalty points system because it awards points for incidents that aren’t “dangerous” (which I think is a red herring, but I recognise the argument). However I think the Cordeel incident shows another potential problem – that the stewards are prone to withhold penalty points for fear of triggering a race ban.

    Failing to drive safely in the pit lane is one of the most fundamentally dangerous things you can do in motorsport, and the narrowness of the Monaco pit lane makes it more important to do it properly, not less. So on the face of it I cannot see why this incident avoided penalty points, unless it was to spare Cordeel a race ban.

    We saw similar with the mysterious U-turn on Hamilton’s penalty points for his illegal practice starts in Russia 2020, when the original penalty would have left him perilously close to a race ban.

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    Jere (@jerejj)
    28th May 2022, 7:01

    Same until reality hit differently than expected.

    A renewable bio-ethanol-based fuel. Of course, F1 will eventually move to fully sustainable fuel, but my thought briefly still went for this version as an interim choice.

    I merely call the post-tunnel chicane, chicane, or the former.

    What a crash, but a good thing Herta is wholly okay.
    The pit lane spin reminded me of Bottas at Red Bull Ring.

    Financial Times post: Good news, as three in the US & five in NA overall are enough.

    Same wondering as COTD.

  6. Profile Photo

    Qeki (@qeki)
    28th May 2022, 9:16

    Imagine the headlines. Mercedes driver lost in underground wine cellar in Monaco.

  7. Profile Photo

    KaIIe (@kaiie)
    28th May 2022, 9:38

    That pit stop competition at Indy looks extremely dangerous.

  8. Ajaxn
    28th May 2022, 11:34

    Their car won’t improve anytime soon if Russell is all about himself. It seems the only driver putting himself out to improve the car is Hamilton.

    Read about it here.

    https://www.express.co.uk/sport/f1-autosport/1615563/Lewis-Hamilton-sacrifice-theory-George-Russell-Mercedes-F1-news

Comments are closed.