Why was George Russell's swearing rant censored?!

0:02This is a global production. You're w*****ers, you're all w*****ers. Unacceptable, un*****g acceptable this whole weekend. What's going on with George? Feels like there's just been drama after drama after drama. I think it was like 20 grand. No way. Apologies, my telephone ringing. Oh, it's another racing driver, Alex Albon.

0:30Up to Speed

0:35Hey, it's David It's Jolie and welcome to Up to Speed Well, DC, it is so nice to be back with you And of course, it's our last race coming up for the summer break Where the hell's the time gone? Time flies when you're having fun And we're both going to be in Budapest So, yeah, where I want to really get into, I think, is team radio and some of it's been bleeped out because the drivers, unsurprisingly, when they're a bit pissed off, they speak from the heart. Oh my goodness, a thing just fell off my wall. It scared the life out of me. I thought there was a snake or something in my office. Don't panic.

1:17It was just a poster. It was a poster of you, actually. Thank God. I was so worried. Look, for those that haven't seen or heard George's radio message, Allow me to read it out to you He said I'm out What the F happened With the SOC Down the straight I had no effing battery Down the straight Guys Unacceptable Un-effing acceptable This whole weekend Cool I mean so that Yeah Never broadcasted I think There's some like Easy explanations If we wanted to Kind of shift the blame To say Like it was right At the very beginning, there's so much going on. There's so much that they could broadcast. There's so much that they could.

2:01There's too much swearing that they didn't want to air it. There was too much to bleep out. But if anything, I actually think it was an error. That should be shown. That's TV gold. Well, SOC, state of charge, of course. And as we now know from the further debrief that came from the weekend, George didn't get a recharge in breaking into term one. That meant he had no battery pack when he came out of Eau Rouge, and that's where he got swamped with cars. And then the racing incident stroke five-second penalty for Lewis Hamilton occurred. Yeah, I wouldn't have had a problem with that being broadcast, because at the end of the day, human beings will say what they say in the moment of frustration.

2:47and okay profanity isn't taught in school but I suspect most people at some point I'm not going to say all of course but I suspect most people have said a little f-bomb or something like that when they're frustrated so I have a problem with that being beat out and I think it just shows what we would all be thinking in that situation you know I've I've been in a scenario if I go way back Hockenheim where I came out of my pit stop behind the Toro Rosso as it was at that time which has now become RB and I was in new tyres it was in old tyres and we were all part of the same family being owned by Red Bull so I was on the radio saying you know let the Toro Rosso know that we're in different phases of the race and let's remind ourselves this was not a period where Red Bull Racing or Toro Rosso were scoring points on a regular basis it was the building years and he doesn't get out of the way.

3:41And I get back on the radio and say, guys, I'm just losing time. You know, we didn't have CARES. We didn't have DRS. We had to rely on somehow finding an overtake. Anyway, it didn't get out of the way. So I'm on the radio going, you're a wang, you're all wang. To which I found out Mr. Mattishez, the owner of Red Bull, was on the radio listening to this. And as it turns out, his point of view was the following. There are two teams owned by Red Bull, but they independently operate. And it's about which one can rise up to the top. So I respect that. And I respect the fact that he therefore didn't come to me afterwards and say, don't ever speak like that on the radio again.

4:23But it wasn't broadcast. It was just when I got back to the pits, Christian Horner and the team were like, yeah, thanks for the compliment. I'm like, well, guys, I'm out there doing this for all of us. And if I'm on new tyres and losing time behind, let's say, friendly competition who has to pit within three or four laps anyway what what is the point you know we're just making it so difficult for ourselves so that was one scenario uh the other one was when i was racing for mclaren one particular year it was a lot of rain uh sorry a lot of sporadic rain so i ended up doing like five or six pit stops i was out of sequence every time they said stay out on slicks it kept raining so i had to come in for wets and then then it dried up and I had to come in for a second.

5:05So I got on the radio and said, God, this is like Keystone Cops, which you're too young to remember. It was a kind of black and white. Oh, apologies. My telephone ringing. Oh, it's another racing driver, Alex Albon. I'll call him back. So Ron Dennis was not happy about that. And I was at a charity event on the Monday afterwards with Sid Watkins, who was the chief medical officer. And I get a call from Ron's secretary saying, you have to come to Woking now. So I had to leave the charity event, go and set aside his office, get pulled into the naughty step and be told off for basically criticising the team, which I guess was fair enough.

5:45But the emotion goes racing. I agree. I think, look, it's one of my favourite moments. I always say that the call-down room and the team radio is my favourite because it's kind of the only place that it's not so heavily PR-trained and media-trained and that they're being watched. And I think when you see what everyone has to say online as well, they agree. I mean, it was a genuine, unfiltered reaction in the moment, and I don't think it's deserving of necessarily the backlash that it's been getting and George has been getting and the team has been getting. The drivers are under huge pressure. I mean, their lives are at risk every time.

6:22I mean, I'm preaching to the choir every time, you know, you all get in the car. So for once, I'm actually going to sit here and defend George. But it seems, I look at it, I look at his relationship with Mercedes, I look at his relationship with Toto, and it's definitely tarnished from what it once was. As I've just come back from the World Cup, it feels like the only example right to use. But your relationship with your manager and your boss in any walk of life is important straight after the england norway game thomas to called was you know of course saying he wasn't happy with the england performance even though that they won and then that gets repeated back to jude bellingham and jude bellingham basically said well i don't care what thomas to cross to say i'm paraphrasing here he was like you know i'm he should try and play in these conditions la la la la la la and then the following match you know everyone sweeps under the bus we blame the media we say that the media have made it worse and they've turned them against each other the following game, look, we lost, we knocked down the tournament.

7:20And I'm not saying one necessarily conjoins to the other. But, you know, you look at Toto and George, their relationship definitely is not once what it was. And I don't think it's just as easy as shaking it off and then going to Budapest and everything, being happy families. I think that there'll be a lot. Toto's come up and taken responsibility, I understand that. But when things are said, you never forget what's said. And he might, you know, I'm sure he feels all the bad luck is going his way. why is not any of it going to Kimi, even though obviously Kimi did have a few bad races. So it's, I don't think it's all sunshine and rainbows over at Mercedes right now.

7:57I would agree with that, absolutely. But I see it maybe a different way based on having lived through the joy and the despair of success and failure whilst your teammates, you know, leading a world championship. We have short memories in sport and all it takes is a victory for everyone to be hugging and moving on. And that doesn't mean that a football player doesn't have the right to defend if that's what that particular player felt he needed to do, any more than a manager doesn't have the right to criticise on behalf of the nation if that criticism is justified. I think it's just not the world we live in today that everything gets done behind closed doors.

8:41And even if it does get done behind closed doors, the face the eyes the eyes don't lie do they so it's very difficult to hide all but um i think that george is clearly having some difficulties i think part of that will be down to how he is inputting driving with the car but there's no question there have been a number of issues in this car which are just unexplained and musavers have been open on that what meanwhile you've got a young a youngster full of the the joy of being a new effectively uh you know second year grand pre-driver um and he can't do any wrong at the moment even when even when the car has let him down he's still been leading the world championship so i think it it's all that george needs is a run of form and everything will be fine again but the bottom line is and let's remind ourselves this is about who's winning and who's not and if you're winning your teammate isn't and if your teammates winning you're not and it's forever been the case that I've said on previous podcasts teammates only really get along when they're not really fighting over victories because you're building towards that once you're fighting for victories your whole everything you see if you're if the team principal's talking to your teammate with a smile on his face you think he's giving giving him more support uh you know all of those little things it's a massive psychological business any of these sports and I don't know football as well as you but I can imagine it must be the same as if you're left on the bench or if you're substituted you might not like it but you cannot go and argue with the you know the team boss you've got to accept it shake hands with the guy that's coming on and then sort it out afterwards and I mean look you've spent so much time with Tonto over the years and I know well how do you think he'll be dealing with this scenario internally with George and having to deal with the backlash of everything that's gone on since the radio message has been leaked and knowing that there's a race weekend you know coming up he'll be using data he'll be getting all of the data available to understand what was the issue how much did it affect George how much did it affect Kimi apparently other Mercedes runners had the same issue Mercedes are leading the world championship drivers and constructors but Mercedes power units have had some issues this year across the board across the customer teams and I actually think whatever anyone thinks of anyone that's in the public eye my take on Toto is he's there when they're winning and he's there more importantly when they're not winning and by that I mean he steps up when he's at the Grand Prix and when they've had the lean years he does the interviews he explains what isn't good enough and he explains what the goal is in terms of what they're aiming towards and some of these guys and we see it in sport as well are all very happy to do the interviews when they're winning and then they just can't handle it.

11:33They think that, I think the Scottish team football manager got criticised, didn't he? Because when he was being asked questions, he acted in a very short and just not very friendly way towards the person that was interviewing him. Yes, he's frustrated. Yes, you know, there's a spotlight on him, but that's what he signed up to. That's what he's paid to do. and therefore maintaining a professional position is what I think is being professional. I've told you this before. I took the view, I drove for pleasure and I actually got paid to do everything else and I needed to get paid to survive my life.

12:10So be professional. Yeah, but I think it opens up the wider conversation and we've got a question from Liam Mulley, one on Instagram who said, should Mercedes be worried about the constructor's title? Ferrari have been gaining points together. I mean, as a recap, Mercedes are on 358 points, Ferrari are on 285 points and McLaren a third on 195. I wouldn't say it's a big worry that Mercedes have, but, you know, as Ferrari continue to improve and Mercedes keep having these reliability issues, do you think that's even a conversation internally? 100 % it's a conversation and 100 % it will be a frustration because if you've delivered a fast package but you have unreliability, yes, racing incidents, you've just got to accept that they will happen from time to time.

12:56but the reliability play those conversations will be firm and they will be based on on fact and what is quite clear in this modern era of formula one that the complexities of the software to control all of the elements to get harvesting deployment temperatures in the the right window you know some of the the teams are struggling to get the battery hot enough some are struggling to keep it cool enough. This all has an effect, which then affects the operational systems overall. So it's an ongoing process. We're at the beginning of a development curve, which will continue throughout this year and will settle down as we go into next year.

13:38And I think there's only one more thing to touch upon with what happened to George. And obviously, there's multiple elements from it. We've got the how Mercedes are dealing with it. We've got the team radio. But I think one thing that, you know, I especially felt when watching it, and I know viewers felt very, you know, were very frustrated and I've seen more about it online, is we didn't know that George's battery was at 0%. And it's so hard to follow for anyone without that information. You know, when you're at the race, when you're watching it on TV, unless you're in the midst filming the broadcast or doing the commentary, and I don't even know if the commentators, by the sounds of it, didn't really have everything up on their screen.

14:15It's so hard to follow what's going on in an already new, complicated era why are they not showing the graphics yeah i think well what's been obviously highlighted since this has been raised that we were getting all that information in australia and it was very clear when a car had no battery and when a car had battery and when overtakes were happening i suspect and i don't know this is a fact but there was a feeling that from a broadcast point of view it was somehow taking away from the overtake um where now we're in a situation where things have settled down. FIA tweaked the current regulations in Miami.

14:54Yes, SPA was always going to be an energy poor race, which will be the same we have in Monza. Budapest, thankfully, will not be such an issue. But I think, yeah, now we've been teased with that information, we should probably have it all the time. Because when you've got Lewis being overtaken massively on the Chemo Street, we can figure out that that's because he's used his battery earlier in the lab, into the source and then he's just completely vulnerable. I don't see why we'd want to hide anything from our audience. I don't think we should. I've said this before, a bit like team orders. When I started in Formula One, team orders weren't allowed, but they happened.

15:30And then they brought in a few years ago that team orders were allowed. And I said, excellent, because now we're not lying to our audience because team orders happened whether it was allowed or not. And therefore, now if somebody's given an instruction to move over, we might not appreciate it on behalf of the driver that's being told to move over, but at least we know what we're dealing with. So I totally agree with you that that should be, that graphic should be back up there. I see we've got another question in here, Julie, from Kimberly Matamoros, hopefully I'm saying her name correctly. And I like this one because it's saying, why do the stewards find drivers or teams with cash amount and not penalties?

16:09And where does that money go to well this is in the context of uh ferrari and lewis hamilton were fined 30 000 20 000 payable now 10 000 suspended uh because of an unsafe release uh which saw lewis see the green light come on move into his mechanic who was still trying to do a front wing flap adjustment there was some contact he fell down he got back up and then lewis was sent on his way so uh no one injured, thankfully. But no, this is something close to my heart because in many occasions, if I was speeding in the pit lane because it was my mistake, the penalty, the fine came to me rather than the team.

16:47If it was a technical issue with the team, they paid it. There was my last year in Formula One, Silverstone. The drivers, we all usually meet in one of the garages and then walk out to the truck that takes you on the parade lap. And on the way to the truck, knowing it was my last British Grand Prix, there was a line of marshals and there were some kids there and I stopped to sign some pictures. And as I then walked through onto the start finish street, the truck was pulling off. And I'm like, I'd seen a marshal jump on the back of the truck, it's got a lowered step in Spa, gets a motograph signed, he stepped off and he face planted, hit his skull on the ground and didn't move.

17:25And I was there with Michael and I think it was Fernando and we were both like oh my god I hope he's okay so armed with that I went I'm not running to get on the back of the truck in case I get it wrong and fall off and face plant I got fined 15 ,000 because I was reported for not turning up for the driver's parade now I went to the stewards and said I was in the the garage which you don't get signed in but I was clearly there witnesses I clearly stopped to sign autographs. And yes, I clearly missed getting on the back of the truck, but it wasn't like anyone was going, get on the truck, get on the truck.

18:02So I found that unacceptably harsh and the money goes to the FIA and the FIA spend it, you know, to operate the FIA. They receive a certain amount of money from the commercial rights holder, Formula One, and licenses the drivers pay to the FIA for the license. When I was racing, I was paying over a hundred thousand a year for my race license because it was based on the points you scored the year before. So if you were earning a lot of points, you were paying a lot for your license. And if you were just, let's say a driver, it wasn't scoring points. I can't remember the base. I think it was like 20 grand or something.

18:39So vast amounts of money move around. And we did at a certain point, when I say we, the Grand Prix Drivers Association, did ask that fines could be, let's say, publicly shared with that money being used for the development of young grassroots motorsport or charities, but that was declined. So the money goes in. As to why some is monetary rather than a grid penalty, I guess it's historic. The stewards and the FIA have decided, well, like an unsafe release shouldn't really be an on-track penalty at the next Grand Prix but there needs to be something that hurts 30 grand with I think 10 ,000 as deferred was the penalty to Ferrari 20 grand will not be the espresso bill for the weekend so I don't want to belittle the amounts of money that are involved in the sport but motor racing is expensive and yeah and things like that don't don't really I'm trying to remember how much McLaren got fined I think it was 100 million when they had Ferrari information within their one of their designers was found to have the design the drawings of the Ferrari racing car and FIE couldn't prove that McLaren had access to them but because that had happened they got fined 100 which was basically taken out of their their their payments um from fom uh the governing body the commercial rights holder so that was an expensive fine um and there was a there was always a battle between max mosley who was fia president at that time and ron dennis who was the owner and team principal of mclaren and allegedly ron had to agree to a photograph shaking hands with max i think it might have been a spa and as he's shaking hands apparently max mosley lent in and said a million is for the actual let's say crime of having the data potentially available to mclaren and the other 99 million is for you being a see you next tuesday no way apparently true so ask someone this weekend when you're budapest who's been around the sport for a long time and they will confirm or deny that wow that's unbelievable that is so good yeah welcome to formula one a hundred million i might just start handing out the fines around the paddock and see if anyone flinchers yeah 10 million for your outfit 15 million for not knowing enough 20 million for not listening to up to speed yeah i'm alarmed well you'd probably have to find me for not being uh socially aware and by that i mean social channels like Toptic.

21:28Like Toptic. We'll make Toptics this weekend. Don't worry. Yeah, excellent. Well, I'm, yeah, I'm quite excited for this weekend. And speaking of coming up, I'm excited, DC, to hear your favourite moments from the Budapest Grand Prix. But beforehand, if you're not following us on socials, make sure to do so. It's at uptospedshow. Like, comment, leave a lovely review. And as always, press that red button, like my hats, my F1 hats today, and subscribe to us.

22:00Yeah, I've had lots of memories from the Budapest Grand Prix. If I give you one from childhood, first of all, it was Nelson Piquet battling with Ayrton Senna. And Piquet and Williams, I believe, slid down the inside at the first corner on Senna, who I think was in the Lotus, the GPS Lotus. And as he's overtaking and braking, he's drifting, sliding the car down the inside. And it was just a brilliant piece of Brazilian on Brazilian action that, you know, it was really stimulating to watch. I had a low point. It wasn't my first ever Grand Prix, though. I managed to crash out in one of the high-speed corners, which apparently went through the corner faster than I did in qualifying on old tyres, only to find out that doesn't work.

22:46So that was not a high. um the track's going through a few iterations a few changes over the years always was tough physically for us because we didn't have power steering and you know we were doing sprint races without um without the fuel on board so um we'd come in and refuel so the cars were much lighter so physically it was always a tough race i remember one race jean filner was in the williams i was in mclaren he's leading i'm running second and after the race he was like god you were pushing me so hard and I was like I couldn't obviously overtake because of the nature of the track but like Monaco I was going no you kept you kept pushing and he was like well I thought you were pushing to try and overtake and I was like I kind of was but I didn't really think there was a chance unless you made a mistake anyway it turns out that we both could have finished the same position saving a bit of energy pushing the cars less hard therefore in an era that was unreliable probably taking less risk and with a bit of an understanding still ended up in the same place.

23:47There was a great picture from there when Jenson Button won his first Grand Prix. His eyes were like this through his visor and he's also given us some other victories. Okong got a victory there, I think, in the Alpine. Fernando Alonso got his first win there when he was like 19. So there's a lot of big moments have happened. I think Mansell won a world championship there so early in the season. was so he was in such a dominant place that he won the world championship at the hungarian grand prix so that just shows how strong williams were so there's some highlights and a great city i don't know if you've been in budapest before but it's great city to go out i was i was there actually and this is a shout out to our producer for the champions league final when arsenal lost just just a little while ago so for all my uh arsenal fans out there what a shame that was but were you there for 2007 I think that's probably the most standout memory for me one that I can remember of the Alonzo Hamilton pit stop gate where in quality Alonzo held up Hamilton to stop him going out for that final flying lap I mean it's just it's bonkers to me that that even happened and obviously Alonzo for that got a penalty but the stewards actually subsequently they not only penalised him five grid places but they also excluded McLaren from scoring any Constructors Championship points at the race so it was a real double excuse my French fuck up there but by Alonso I was there, I was racing I was with the Red Bull 2007 but I remember seeing it basically to explain to our audience it was the first year of Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1 he was paired with Fernando Alonso who thought he was signing to McLaren to get a world championship car and a supportive teammate, only to find out that Lewis was pretty special and was matching him nip and tuck all the way through the year.

25:39So he agreed with his trainer, who was on the pit wall, to sit in the pit box before going out for the final part of qualifying and not leave, therefore not allowing Lewis to pull in to change his tyres until he knew it was too late for Lewis to get tyres and then pull out because you're not doing a full Formula One Grand Prix pit stop during qualifying. So it was quite clear it was premeditated. Very confusing for Ron. And yeah, Fernando, therefore, left McLaren earlier than his contract would have allowed because he just, yeah, I think he finished the season on equal points with Lewis Hamilton, which is pretty special for Lewis in his first year with a two-time champion.

26:23But they say a woman scorned. Maybe they don't say that anymore. because the world has moved on. But if I use the old analogy, a woman scorned, what it actually turns out is a Spaniard scorned, or more specifically, a Formula One racing driver Spaniard scorned is something to watch out for because he went against his team, cost himself a penalty, and then obviously cost them points in the constructors. It's almost like, sounds like the F1 movie. Yeah, exactly. Well, history repeats itself. Everyone thinks they're going through stuff for the first time, But actually, it's the same, but just slightly different.

26:58Copy and paste with your own spin on it. Yes, indeed. But before we go, I think something very fun to end on. I bet you don't see many F1 drivers doing this.

27:14Now, as the drivers land for the last race before the summer break, please tell me you've seen the photo of Arvid and Liam flying on EasyJet back from spa i mean dc have you even i was gonna say have you ever flown back from a race on easy jet but full stop have you ever even flown easy jet yeah i flew back from spa on easy jet there's a brilliant service back to nice so i don't get you know what a lot of the guys will do whatever is the most efficient you know i'm i'm on a group chat with the drivers of base deer so i can see you know if there's someone putting an aircraft on and looking to share the cost of that aircraft when you think about it from a saving the planet point of view it's uh quite efficient to put you know fill the plane rather than be sitting on it all by yourself but uh yeah look it's a nice little a nice little image when you've got a bunch of other drivers walking to a private aircraft um but yeah i don't see anything weird and wonderful in that at all um why would you why would you spend significant amounts of money if it's a perfectly good flight otherwise i just think it's hilarious and i love that they take their selfie and like they they knew you know that that's going viral i think it's also so nice for other fans that would have been on that flight just to see that bit of normality there's no business class in easy jet there's no you know splitting up you're all paying your overpriced water and sandwich um but i i mean i'll never forget when i was um taken into questioning when i landed in las vegas with yuki sunoda and I walk in to be questioned about my reasons for being there and etc.

28:55And Yuki's just sat there and it was literally Yuki and I in this room and we looked at each other and he was like, what are you doing here? And I was like, one minute, you're racing in four days. What are you questioning you for? They held him for a long time, didn't they? Because of he probably didn't have the right visa or whatever it is. We were in there for about two hours, Yuki and I. Oh my God. Yeah, that's painful. That's painful. It was not fun. Well, I'm sorry for that. I'm going to be seeing Yuki tomorrow, actually, because I'm driving. There's two two-seater Formula One cars. And for the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Foundation, Yuki and I are taking guests around the Red Bull Ring.

29:33So there's 20 people have paid to be passengers. So 10 will go with him, 10 will go with me. And yeah, so I'm looking forward to catching up with him there. But I just want to give a notable shout out to EasyJet. Maybe they should be a supporter of our podcast. because I think it's great. I never put my seat back on any European flight anyway. I don't want to disturb the people behind me. I always put my bag in front of me where my feet are because I've got no problem sitting with my legs at 90 degrees. But they've actually got more knee room if I sit upright than BA. So BA business, my knees are rubbing the seat in front when I sit upright.

30:10And EasyJet, standard, it's everyone's got the same seat. I've got, well, a good, what would that be? 30 centimetres um before before the seat in front so well done easy jet for giving taller people me room so are we flying to budapest this weekend easy jet no i'm going privately oh well that was my invite last time i checked we were doing this race together yeah no no well i'm flying from nice to vienna and then i'm driving to the rebel ring to do the event and then i'll it's only what four hours by road uh from rebel ring to budapest so yeah I'll be in Budapest Wednesday night and ready to get stuck into hopefully what will be a cracking Grand Prix Yeah excited Well what weekend we've got coming and as always we will have our recap show for you ready on Monday but DC it's been fab catching up you've got a very busy week I'm going to have a little resting recovery next two days before our weekend you're going to be racing I wonder who's picked, if they did a poll, who would pick Yuki over you?

31:16Do we reckon you've got more requests or Yuki's got more requests? I think the taller people will go in with Yuki because the two-seaters are owned by Paul Stoddart, who used to own the Minardi Formula One team when Mark Webber made his debut. So he has these two modified Minardi cars. And if you're over a certain height, you just can't be a passenger. so the taller passengers could the drivers so the passenger legs come down the side of the driver so the little people will be better with me because i'm taller and the taller people will be better with yuki because there'll be more space so we decided that way okay very nice no favorites then no exactly exactly and then we're going to both be in budapest so uh dinner one night shall we uh plan an evening i'm available any night but saturday night and Sigrid's joining me so we can talk about wedding bells and help you with your wedding planning in the future well the reason you can't do Saturday night is because we're both at the same event together so we both can't do Saturday night exactly exactly oh well who's the spotlight on is it on you it must or is it on me no it's on you it's on you neither of us are winners of the Hungarian Grand Prix so this is true there's always time there's always next year but if you guys are going to be there to let us know.

32:37Maybe you could join us for dinner. Head to our socials at UpToSpeedShow. Make sure you're following us. If you've got any emails, any questions, any thoughts, it's uptospeed at global.com. As always, we've got new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Subscribe and leave a review, and we will be back on Monday after Budapest. DC, safe travels, and I shall see you on Thursday. I'll see you there. Look forward to it. Up To Speed is brought to you by American Express. There's always more with Amex.