Motorsport News November 17, 2022

It has been, at times this season, hard not to feel sorry for George Russell. The up-and-coming British star finally earned his shot at a drive in a benchmark team at Mercedes, just as the German juggernaut hit the skids. As if going up against seven-time title winner Lewis Hamilton wasn’t going to be tough enough. The dodgy chassis was bouncing its drivers all over the place over the beginning of the season, but Russell kept his counsel, kept his head down and – even without Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix victory – was likely to finish in front of Hamilton in the points table anyway. What was notable about Russell’s win was the way he coped with all that was thrown at him. There was Hamilton chasing him down, there was a…

The first-ever playing of God Save the King rang out over the Sao Paulo podium to herald George Russell’s maiden win in Formula 1 last Sunday. At his 81st attempt, the Norfolk man calmly withstood the pressure to beat his seven-time World champion team-mate Lewis Hamilton in a chaotic and eventful 71 laps around Interlagos. This was Mercedes’ first 1-2 since Imola 2020 and the first British 1-2 since the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix – and a well-deserved victory for Mercedes after its torrid season. After winning the Saturday sprint race, Russell started from P1 and beat Hamilton into Turn 1. Afterwards he brilliantly controlled the race, calming dealing with safety car restarts and his team-mate breathing down his neck in the closing stages. “It’s an incredibly emotional feeling as it’s been such a…

Formula 1 bosses are considering making the Saturday sprint races completely standalone events which will carry points but not set the grid for Sunday’s main event. The sport’s rulers have determined that there will be six sprint events in 2023, but has yet to identify which tracks would host them. That announcement is expected in the next few weeks, and a possible plan to make them standalone events is also thought to be on the table. World champion Max Verstappen has previously panned the current points-paying races, because the Red Bull man says it mitigates against racing. The Dutchman said: “There are a few points that you get, but you also know that you can’t really risk it because the main race is where you really get the points. With these cars,…

Haas Formula 1 team principal Gunther Steiner has said he will aim to rubber-stamp the team’s 2023 driver line-up this week. The American-owned team is the only outfit with a seat still available next season, providing Logan Sargeant earns enough superlicence points to allow him to join Alex Albon at Williams next term. “Hopefully next week we can announce something, whatever we are doing,” said Steiner in Brazil last weekend. “[It is] my objective, but I don’t promise it. “We want to have the driver in that drives next year in the Abu Dhabi test [following the final grand prix of the year on November 20], that’s the only thing we want to do. “We [will] try to make the best decision we can, and time helps to make good decisions.”…

Formula 1 chiefs are aiming to reorganise the calendar to help the sport cut down on its travel, thus cutting down its environmental impact. Next year’s schedule features 24 races and there are several anomalies: the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is back-to-back with Miami, some 6800 miles apart. The penultimate race is in Las Vegas before the finale a week later in Abu Dhabi, which is a distance of 8200 miles. Formula 1 sporting director Steve Nielsen said: “We’re working on regionalising the calendar. We have a future calendar, I won’t tell you from which year, but we have a future sort of perfect calendar, within some years down the line. “And we’re iterating gradually towards that each year, moving an event here or there by a week. So there’s a strategy to get…

Formula 1 bosses are considering a revamp of the licence penalty points system after AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly’s censure in Mexico recently. The Frenchman’s transgression of going off-track in an overtake has taken him to within two penalty points of a one-race ban. But Grand Prix Drivers’ Association director and Mercedes racer George Russell has said that the sport’s bosses are pondering a change over the winter. Russell said often the penalty didn’t fit the on-track crime. In Brazil, Russell said: “There is a lot to review this season in many different regards, so the FIA are definitely going to have a busy off-season. “In sport, you have to be ready and able to adapt, you have regulations in place and it only takes one incident to recognise maybe the regulation isn’t quite…