George Russell was left frustrated by the current state of racing in Formula 1 after the United States Grand Prix, claiming it is all down to qualifying and what happens at the start.
The Mercedes driver finished sixth on Sunday after dropping down to that position at lights out, while most runners used a one-stop strategy to make it hard for Russell to jump back up the order using strategic variance.
Max Verstappen eventually dominated the Austin race, marking the 13th time this year that a grand prix has been won from pole, with only six occasions in which that hasn’t happened.
“Right now in F1 it’s a race to Turn 1,” Russell told Sky Sports F1. “There’s no tyre degradation, there’s only three tenths between the quickest car and the slowest car in the top six.
“Normally, you need at least half a second to overtake, so if I came out of Turn 1 in P3, I’d have been on the podium today. But instead I came out in P6 and I finished P6.”
Russell later expanded to the print media on why tyre life is predominantly the reason for the lack of overtaking, a problem that has also been heightened by the tightness of the competitive order.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari are all in contention for the podium spots, and in Q3 on Saturday, just half a second covered the top six from Verstappen down to Oscar Piastri.
“The thing is now when there’s no tyre degradation, there’s no tyre delta,” said Russell. “Every track we go to, you need at least half a second to overtake, so that’s why you’re not seeing any overtakes. I don’t even remember the last two-stop race.”
Russell was reluctant to criticise Pirelli though, given it has produced a very capable tyre meaning teams can now successfully operate a one-stop strategy at most circuits.
“Pirelli get a hard time no matter what,” said the five-time grand prix winner. “There’s lots of tyre degradation, people say it’s not real, the drivers can’t push, we have to manage, we don’t like that when there’s no tyre degradation, we say it’s a boring race we want to see.
“But they don’t seem to be able to win in any case, so realistically you want a tyre that you can push full gas, but it doesn’t go the whole race.
“If you could choose the tyre, it’s a tyre you can go flat out, but after 15 laps it falls off a cliff and you have to do a two- or three-stop race.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images
“Ideally, the soft tyre does 12 laps, the medium tyre does 15 laps and the hard tyre does 20 laps and then it falls off the cliff. But that is a lot easier said than done.
“Pirelli get a very hard time, they do their best, they have given us a substantially better tyre, like this tyre is very good, but it causes bad racing.”
Russell therefore doesn’t see the situation improving at the remaining five rounds of 2025 – Mexico, Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi – ahead of the new regulations next year.
“Qatar and Vegas realistically are our two best shots, but again, it all just comes down to the lap in qualifying,” he added to Sky Sports.
“If you do a really strong lap and you’re on the front row you can hold the position and if you don’t, it’s going to be the same in Mexico. So, it’s going to come down to Q3 and the race.”
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