‘Resilient’ Russell + resurgent Max – Austrian GP Review

0:00James Hinchcliffe:Get that Amex Gold Card ready. I'm way too tired to cook tonight. You read my mind. With the Gold Card, we can get up to$120 a year in statement credits. Are you feeling the Cheesecake Factory? Five Guys? Either of those sound good? Yes. Which one? Both. Pay with the Gold Card to receive up to$10 a month in statement credits at participating partners. Uncover more ways to reward yourself at americanexpress.com slash explore-gold. Enrollment required. Terms apply. For his second Grand Prix victory of the season, George Russell wins the Austrian Grand Prix.

0:42James Hinchcliffe:It's going to take that pressure off to a certain extent. Once you release some of that pressure, you can start performing at a very high level again. Toto said it was a cold-blooded victory. I could very conceivably see George Russell pull up to Silverstone and absolutely dominate. I wonder if Kimi hadn't made those mistakes. I think he could have won this Grand Prix. You've got to have him believe he could have won that race if it wasn't for outside factors, and then he'll go to Silverstone with confidence. Max Verstappen saying after the race that he's finally got a car that he can fight with.

1:16He went off into his chrysalis and now has become a beautiful butterfly. What aspect of this car's performance impressed you guys the most? the driver. The seven-time world champion and the four-time world champion separated by millimetres. The very limit of acceptable, wasn't it? I love the fact that they're so aggressive on strategy now, but I just wonder whether they did overcook it a little bit today. It's a bit like doing a bicycle kick into the back of the net in a school football match, isn't it? You're going to try and do it again next match, but Ferrari couldn't keep hold of its tires.

1:52Hello everyone and welcome to Spielberg for F1 Nation's review of the Austrian Grand Prix. I'm Tom Clarkson and joining me in the Red Bull ring in the Red Bull Energy Station are two F1 TV experts, IndyCar race winner James Hinchcliffe and two-time Le Mans podium finisher Alex Brundle. Now guys, I thought that was a humdinger of a Grand Prix. What are your headlines? What are your takeaways from that?

2:19James Hinchcliffe:I think takeaways are Russell back on top, you know, finally getting that second victory of the season. Verstappen, once again, just proving why he is really on another level at times from the rest of the field. And then I think some of the other headlines are more the misses, right? Ferrari not having the pace we were expecting. McLaren really just kind of missing the mark a little bit this weekend. So a couple pluses, maybe a couple minuses. I think it's a race that got away for Antonelli, firstly, with the braking issues at the start. And then secondly, they didn't manage to capitalise, whether it was by positioning of the cars on track for the VSC where Sainz stopped or not quite calling it as quickly enough.

3:03But when you look at his pace towards the end of the race, actually, he was relatively quick. He maybe could have been past Verstappen, whether he could have challenged Russell. I don't know but that would have meant the point swing would have been considerably different Russell back on top but under heavy pressure from Verstappen who appeared to come from nowhere in a Red Bull which has been upgraded but demonstrate the pace of an upgraded car until he delivered that lap he didn't finish in qualifying which converted into speed in the race and we've got a hell of a season on our hands if that's going to be the battle for the rest of the year which i don't think it will be because this circuit is so specific and we're on to some very different ones next right let's break it down driver by driver can we start with russell um he opened up in the press conference after the race talking about all the mental pressures he'd been through over the last two months canada monaco and and what a release this race was it's been a tough couple of months some really tricky races you know with with races that felt like everything was going against me then some races with some tough performances you know obviously I've got a really incredible teammate next to me who week in week out is delivering some pretty spectacular performances so for me you know going into Canada going into Barcelona from quite a low point it was I need a lot of resilience to be able to get back and deliver some strong performances so to get the last two poles to get the win here this weekend especially on a track which i don't think is so suited to me i'm really really proud about how emphatic was this win by george russell or have you guys alluded to it already in that in slightly different circumstances you know if max maybe had pitted for his second stop a little bit earlier could it have been

4:55James Hinchcliffe:different for george it wasn't a it wasn't a dominant performance right he didn't he didn't I mean, he led lights to flag, but he didn't walk away with it. As Alex said, under heavy pressure, caught considerably by both Max and Kimi in that final stint. Maybe he's just managing. Maybe he had, you know, pace up the sleeve. I think regardless, if you can get a win, you can get back on top after what he's been through, it is going to help. It's going to take that pressure off to a certain extent. He'll sleep well tonight. And once you release some of that pressure, you can start performing at a very high level again and and if there's been something that's been holding him back something that's been sitting in the back of his mind maybe that's been a little bit of you know maybe he was stressing about throwing the win away in that last stint because he was quite strong in the beginning of the race as you get closer to the end and you can see that it's just around the corner you know you start tightening up and maybe that was some of it with that win now that second win two races in a row he's taken a good haul of points out of Kimi's lead maybe we can start to see George really hit that sort of early season stride i think for me it was more it was more the middle stint you know where he's not managing it to the end he's not got a buffer he's not got a gap he's got verstappen closing in on him and actually verstappen manages to drive the red bull into undercut range of russell having been you know having started further back on the grid and not being in proximity with him at the start which is a pace deficit that shouldn't exist and i i'm not convinced that that red bull is a better car in that phase of the race than the Mercedes.

6:31In fact, I think probably the opposite might have been true. So, you know, the tale of the tape will read George Russell pole, George Russell victory. But the pole position was very clever. Usage, understanding of the rules, management of the situation, lightning fast thought process. Can't deny him that. Even still, you know, I think he probably still had the lap underneath him. In the race, as Hincher said, he was under heavy pressure, lights the flag. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the racing IQ, if that's the right expression, it took to get that pole, to see that it was a single wave yellow, when all around him, not all around him, but Kimi specifically didn't.

7:14When you're doing 300 kph, how hard is it to process all that? You know, we sat there after the session, and I looked at Hincher, and I said, would you have lifted fully? And he said, yeah. and I would have seen yellow and lifted to discern. But he did as well. He did do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about abort the lap. Okay. Right? I'd have abort the lap. We would have kimmied. We would have kimmied it. We both would have kimmied it, right? So to look at that and go, oh, that's interesting. So bearing out that it's probably about, it's rim curve as well as completely blind on the entry. So it's not like you can see the incident either, right?

7:49And take a view. Yet what he actually said, which I think is probably a fortunate thought, is he thought somebody had gone wide in rint curve and then continued. And that's what the single yellow flag was for, which is an entirely logical thought process and a beneficial thought process. But yeah, to understand those rules, a longer period of time in Formula 1 as well, right? So in junior formulas, don't get me wrong, Kimmy's been in Formula 2 and so on and so forth. But in junior formulas, most of that's dealt with by flags. You don't get the clever light panels. So to understand exactly how the light panels are, George has been through a couple of those scenarios with qualifying sessions ending, not ending, so on.

8:27But yeah, a huge IQ.

8:28James Hinchcliffe:And I think the other thing, and look, we've talked about this with George Russell for years. You know, his ability to call strategy from within the car during a race. I mean, he is a very cerebral driver. And I think that there are a few examples. You know, once this happened, everybody started coming out of the woodworks with examples that had set the precedent, right? So there were other examples where a driver gave up a tenth,.12, and were able to keep the lap. George would have known that. That was before Kimi was in Formula One. I don't expect a guy in his second year to know all those historical situations that Russell was around for.

9:04James Hinchcliffe:So he knows that in the past a driver has given up a tenth and kept a lap. And he saw that he was over two tenths up on what pole would have been. So in that moment, yes, to process all that in that split second is phenomenal. But that's what racing drivers do. There's a big part of that that's pure experience, a big part of it. But there was a moment in the race as well where Verstappen got close. Mercedes had done the right thing, I think, which is to box Russell and defend from the undercut. then Antonelli and Verstappen are 12 seconds up the road from George Russell he sitting there with two cars he can't see goes imagines the positioning of both cars and goes if we pit Kimi now it'll force Verstappen to pit which will reduce the tyre offset that I have at the end it was the other way around if you keep Kimi out it's going to make it harder for me Yeah, well, he presented it that way.

10:06But what he meant was pit Kimi to force Verstappen to pit to prevent... Like, he's imagining two cars on a different part of the racetrack there while driving his eggnog. My question is this. If he just drove, would he be quicker? Very good. Look, to quote Toto Wolff again, right? Toto said it was a cold-blooded victory, this one by George. I don't really know what he meant by that. Do you guys have any idea? I think it's the absorption of the pressure of, you know, and not making mistakes. And there were a couple of mistakes in there, but he didn't make one big enough to actually cost him the position.

10:46So do we think George Russell is still acting the team leader at Mercedes? You talk about, you know, thinking about the strategy, even though he's still 40 points behind his teammate in the World Championship, Do you think they still defer to him more than Kimi?

11:03James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, I think so. I would. I mean, I think that experience is crucial. And it's so important. It's such a valuable asset to have. And look, Kimi still made a bunch of mistakes today, right? Those first two laps were scrappy and cost him positions. And Toto even acknowledged that. He was on our post-race show and said, you know, scrappy first lap from Kimi. And that probably hurt his race. there are there are still those those you know the youthful exuberance you know issues and errors that are sneaking into to his game george has just so much experience and and we just we've talked so many times about how good he is at reading races from inside the car i do think the team still does lean on him tremendously in those situations it's a quirk of sort of the amount of resource available to drivers and the amount of resource engaged in the cars in modern Formula One though that actually when you've got so much information as the team and I remember Daniel Ricciardo for example in his last couple of years as a Formula One driver and the team was saying he's trying to apply experience and he's trying to guide the engineering direction and he's trying to use all of the information he has for being in championship winning teams and and actually what we'd love him to do is just drive the racing car because we are capable of setting up we're capable of engineering it we know how much each different component bends per temperature so do we do they need that amount of info back from george and when you actually listen to the comments from george and you listen to the comments from lewis of late they've both taken a step back right lewis not using the simulator anymore focusing more on data george focusing less on other people's data, just focusing on his own.

12:50James Hinchcliffe:So I do think we're in this interesting era of the sport where there is information overload. We use a term all the time, it's over-engineering the car. Engineers can over-engineer the car. They've got too many sensors, they've got too many settings, too many options. You mean, just in layman's terms, you're overthinking? Basically, yes. And so for a driver, you can pump too much information into your brain. Ultimately, you've got to rely on that gut instinct, that seat-of-the-pants feel that made you good and got you to this place in the first. They don't have that in F2. They've got data, but they don't have anywhere near the resource that you do in Formula One.

13:26James Hinchcliffe:So kind of take a step back and just go back to basics a little bit. Engineers will say, in as many words, I just need to... In fact, Toto Wolff said it over the radio to George Russell in qualifying. George, just drive. Just drive. Just drive. and I've had engineers to me say to me in the past um you know in driving with with a lot of information on cars I need you to be considerably more stupid than you are please and just drive the racing car and stop trying to engineer it that's my job so George actually admitted didn't he that he's been overdriving overthinking overdriving just let it come naturally do what you do?

14:06James Hinchcliffe:Trying sometimes is the worst thing you can do. Driving quickly in a race car is such a second nature thing. It's an innate ability at this point. It's pre-programmed. It's muscle memory. It's instinct. And sometimes as soon as you mentally start trying to go faster, you immediately go slower. But when you are getting beat by someone, it's really hard to not try harder, right? So it is such a delicate balance. And guys, that's why it's hard. This is Formula One. It is very difficult. These are top-level athletes in an incredibly mental game.

14:50I'm still fascinated by how these 2026 cars suit some drivers more than others, right? but Max Verstappen doesn't seem to matter what sort of car you put him in. But, you know, George is struggling more. Lewis is happier. I'm still fascinated as to why that's the case. I think what we saw, particularly, for example, from Max at the beginning of this year, is sort of the pain of transition, though. You know, because he's on it now, isn't he? You know, he really didn't like these cars at the beginning of this year. But he went off into his chrysalis and now has become a beautiful butterfly in this era of Formula One car.

15:29And, you know, exactly as Hinch was saying, it's such a muscle memory for a driver who's been driving a certain type of way for a number of years, and then you have to change everything, and it kind of like, it feels awkward, and it feels unpleasant, but all the time you're being evap... It's not like you can go away and learn a new skill, and you can go and hide and learn how to play the piano differently in a room, and no one will listen to the piece until you come out and show them. You're being evaluated every step of the way, which means that drivers are being, as they're learning to adapt to these new cars, are being asked to continuously account for their performance.

16:06We ask them, so they tell us, I don't like it, it's hard and horrible, but they get there, they get there.

16:13James Hinchcliffe:And there's also, there's no testing. So to practice, to refine a skill, you have to do it on race weekends. You have to do it in one of three one-hour sessions and then you go into quality. Every lap in a Formula One car counts for something. It means something. There's no meaningless running anymore. There's no extra time to play around with your natural style. And that is what I think changed. There are certain drivers that get the speed. They get the lap time a certain way. Different faces of the corners suit different styles. Different cars, different regulation sets get the lap time through different faces of the corner and being driven in a different style.

16:49James Hinchcliffe:And the real greats, the maxes can seemingly adapt much easier. But for a driver that's been doing it a certain way for 10 years at this level, not just, I mean, never mind all their junior career, at this level, to try to ask them to change when every lap is televised and covered by media and means something and making a mistake costs valuable track time on a race weekend, it is so, so, it's like asking a basketball player who's right-handed to start shooting with their left. It's also kind of a moving target as well, right? You know, you go to Barcelona, all of a sudden not pushing the front left tire in turn three is really important because that'll elongate the stint.

17:31Turn up at red bull rings, suddenly it's the rear left or the rear right or none of that matters. And it's actually now the brake temps are the problem that you need to make sure those are right. That wasn't a problem in Barcelona. It wasn't a problem in Monaco. It wasn't a problem, you know. And so these continuously moving targets It's going to take really the full season before we actually find out who can really drive these cars. So we're seeing who can engineer them. We're seeing who's got the best one. But who can really drive these cars is still playing out on track. And a win from Paul and closing the gap.

18:03What is he? He's taken 28 points out of Kimi Antonelli in the last couple of races. All that helps, doesn't it? And then your boss comes out and says, yeah, yeah, we're going to keep the same driver lineup for 2027. Surely it's a confidence game, isn't it?

18:16James Hinchcliffe:It always has been. it always will be and and that's why i said i mean this this win now even if it it did seem at at times in the race he was maybe driving a bit tight i can i could very conceivably see george russell pull up to silverstone and absolutely dominate that event lead every practice qualify and pull and and dominate the race that is the kind of thing that a weekend like this that he fully executed barcelona he nearly fully executed this one was a true full execution start to finish right What about Kimi Antoni? Let's just deal with all things Merck before we come on to Max Verstappen.

18:52What about Kimi? As I just said, George has closed the gap to him by quite a margin over the last couple of races. Kimi's making a lot of mistakes. As he's on his way back this evening, what's he going to be thinking on the plane?

19:08James Hinchcliffe:He got beat by George in qualifying, right? I think we looked at the data. Even without backing off, he wasn't going to beat George. That lap, George made it happen. In the other races where Georgia's done that, kind of think back to Montreal, certainly late in the race in Barcelona. Kimi's race pace has kind of been better. His race craft has been a little bit better. His race pace has been a little bit better. But it's peppered in with all these mistakes. Kimi can look at this weekend and think, in his head he's going to think, oh, I would have got pole if that yellow hadn't happened. He's not right.

19:39James Hinchcliffe:But he's also going to look at that first lap and the positions that it cost him. Even if winning wasn't really on the cards for him today, he probably could have been second had he not made those mistakes. So he still just has to look at the little things that he's missing and giving up time on. It'll be interesting to see how Mercedes actually handle this because I think the right way to handle it with Kimi would be for them to say, the braking issue at the beginning wasn't your fault. You've had a problem. We've tried to mitigate it to whatever percentage that's true. and then we maybe could have pitted you when science stopped and maybe could have given you the opportunity to win the Grand Prix and you were faster than George Russell at the end.

20:19That's what I would tell Kimi Antonelli if I was his engineer and I would try to have him leaving feeling like he won in terms of performance even if he didn't win in terms of finishing position. We saw from sort of after the early couple of races where George was super strong and we saw that Kimi was going to be lightning fast, and I knew, because I watched him in Formula 2 do exactly the same thing, every so often he has, and he's got better at recovering from them. He has a little mini meltdown on track, where he loses a couple of positions, or he'll have a spin or a moment, and then that, I always thought, would be what cost him the championship in comparison to George, if it played out, who I think is way more experienced, consistent, understandably.

21:06as Kimi's engineer you know as Bono you've got to have him believe he could have won that race if it wasn't for outside factors and then he'll go to Silverstone with confidence I wonder if Kimi hadn't made those mistakes in those opening couple of laps I think he could have won this Grand Prix me too me too we looked very very hard at the stop potentially for science around the virtual safety car and if they'd absolutely gunslinger called it they might have got him in which would have been a cheaper pit stop and would have put him in the battle at the front. Honestly, if it absolutely fell for him, he could have battled George Russell for the win today.

21:44So what do you think he's thinking about the championship now, Kimi? He still thinks he's leading it by a long way, I would imagine. He's not necessarily had this experience of just how far there is to go in a Formula 1 championship before. Look at Formula 2 when you got to this position in the Formula 2 championship. It's almost over, right? So this number of events to have to defend a championship lead is huge. So I suspect he's still feeling pretty calm about the whole thing. But like I said, he needs the people around him to manage his mind. The guy's 19, you know. He's going to turn up to every single racetrack, send it and see what happens.

22:31He's got to get everyone around him taking his mind away from anyone closing in on him for the series. Right. We're in the Red Bull energy station because this is the team that seems to have taken the biggest jump forward this weekend with the upgrades. Max Verstappen saying after the race that he's finally got a car that he can fight with. What aspects of this car's performance impressed you guys the most? The driver. I was going to say Red Bull have taken a step forward I think Verstappen has we look at Hadjah's performance I don't think you can separate the two though, can you?

23:07James Hinchcliffe:I mean, I think you can because you look at the other car it didn't have anywhere near the performance that Max did what's so interesting about Max is it seems like when he's not 100 % happy with the balance him and his teammate are much closer once he gets the car the way he wants which now again still seems to be something that other drivers struggle to match, the gap tends to grow. And I think we saw it in 23. I think we saw it in 24. I think we saw it in 25. When Red Bull was having an off weekend, they were closer. When Max felt comfortable, all of a sudden one of the Red Bulls was up there.

23:45James Hinchcliffe:Now, Hedger's doing a phenomenal job next to one of the greatest to ever do it. But it was a much bigger gap this weekend, right? And we've seen that at a couple races. Whenever Max feels really on, when Max qualifies sixth, Hadjar's seventh. When Max can race his way up to second, Hadjar's still sixth. Why is that? What is the difference is the driver, I think, at this point. The driver insofar as he melds with whatever it is that they've changed on the car. And I genuinely kind of wait to get into that data and understand what they've given him. because I think it'll give us a huge answer to what has been going on at Red Bull for years.

24:25They clearly came with a car this year that, again, more parity between the drivers, but Max couldn't get that extreme ultimate performance like we've seen today. They've put whatever it is he wants back in, and I think we'll be able to work out from the data set that we get from this race what that thing is. It's been written all over Hadjar's face all weekend. I can't stop, I can't turn, I can't do this, you know. And it's been a lot of...

24:52James Hinchcliffe:Engines, RPMs, there's been a litany of issues with this upgrade package. There has, but you know, the main thing appears to be understeer. When you look into the data set, the main thing appears to be understeer that Max can overcome. I think he's hyper precise with the car. But for me, it could also be venue specific, Tom, because... I've asked Max that question. I said, is it track specific? And he said, well, no, I've got more grip everywhere. So it should be everywhere. Although he then did say, well, we're going to take it race by race. But if you've got more grip everywhere, it shouldn't be.

25:22Sure. But different compounds and different corners is just different chemistry, right? The way the tire engages with a racetrack, it's different load, it's different chemistry.

25:31James Hinchcliffe:Ferrari brought the upgrade to Barcelona. It didn't translate to here quite the same way, did it? So there's definitely an element of that. I think more so this year, especially with this generation of car, with the upgrade race, the development race being what it is, I think it's a lot harder to know at this point if something, you know, I think there are more track specific gains than we're used to seeing. That's a really disappointing weekend for Ferrari, isn't it? Because they've used one of two development tokens on the engine side that they've been given from the Adio. They've brought about something which they said, OK, they said it's not massive, it's marginal, but it's for performance.