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George Russell attended the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix Thursday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: George, coming to you now. First of all, any ill effects from your crash in Melbourne? How are you feeling?
George RUSSELL: I’m feeling all good.
Q: Look, let’s talk about this weekend and the performance of your car. It seems to fluctuate from race to race, sometimes session to session. So how confident can you be coming to Suzuka?
GR: It’s still obviously early days in the season. I think there’s a clear trend, where we know our strengths in the car, our weaknesses. Definitely performing stronger in the low-speed corners, struggling a bit in the high-speed corners, of which there’s more of in Jeddah, more of in Melbourne, more of in Suzuka, you know, these are the faster circuits of the season. There’s still plenty to understand. So as I said, still early days, we know we’re not where we want to be, but everybody’s working really hard to, you know, improve the correlation, get a bit closer to what we’re seeing at the factory on the simulator and find some performance.
Q: You’ve been back at the sim, driving the sim back in Brackley since Melbourne. Did you make any breakthroughs there?
GR: I think every time you’re back, you are understanding things further. There’s never going to be a silver bullet for any team. You’re chipping away at it. You want to find big breakthroughs. You want to find big gains. It’s rare that these happen these days in Formula 1. The level is so, so high. Everybody’s moving forward, but we’re confident that we’re going to make another step in the right direction. Will it be enough is another question, but as we said, it’s still early days in the season.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Nelson Valkenburg – Viaplay, Netherlands) Mostly for George this one, but for the group as well. A lot’s been said about brake testing last week. Is there a discussion to be had amongst yourselves about what is legal, what is normal, what you can do and what you can’t do? Do you expect more discussions to be had for you, George, and also for Max, possibly?
GR: Yeah, I think it was… Obviously a bit of a strange situation that happened last week. As I said at the time, totally caught by surprise. I was actually looking at the steering wheel, making a switch change in the straight, which, you know, we all do across the lap. And when I looked up, I was in Fernando’s gearbox and it was sort of too late. And then next thing I know I’m in the wall. So I think, if it were not to have been penalised, it would have really opened the kind of worms for the rest of the season – and in junior categories – of saying, you know, are you allowed to break in a straight? Are you allowed to slow down, change gear, accelerate, do something semi-erratic? I don’t take anything personally with what happened with Fernando. And it probably had bigger consequences than it should have. But as I said, if it went unpenalised, can you just break in the middle of a straight? I don’t know. So, yeah, nothing more to say really.
Q: (Diego Mejia – Fox Sports, Mexico) Question for George. George, did you get to speak to Fernando after his penalty? Was there any need to clear the air over it?
GR: Yeah, I mean, we actually saw each other back home, just coincidentally bumped into each other in a coffee shop…
Max VERSTAPPEN: Did you brake test him there or not?
GR: No, as I said before, it’s nothing personal. When the helmet’s on, we’re all fighters and competing. And when the helmet’s off, you have respect for one another. So, of course, a lot of emotions in the moment. But, you know, we both moved forward from this.
Q: Did you discuss it in the coffee shop?
GR: No, we didn’t. He didn’t get my coffee, though, that was probably the least that could have happened. But, no, it’s history now.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport)Another question to George, please. Just on the other element of your incident in Melbourne, the fact that you were left stranded in the track and nothing happened for a long time in terms of safety systems. So do you think something needs to change in that regard?
GR: I mean, it was an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, you know, your… on a blind bend, 250 kilometres an hour, right on the racing line with the car half upside down, you know, waiting for disaster to happen. You know, fortunately I had a 10-second gap behind me and I think it was 10 or 12 seconds before the Safety Car came out. But in the space of 10 seconds, you can have five, six, seven cars if that was on lap one of the race and probably been hit numerous times, even with the yellow flag. Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen close incidents before where a car comes back, Carlos in ‘22 in Japan. I think we need to find a way that if a car is in a danger zone, automated, you know, VSC straight away, you know, within, you know, half a second or so because those seconds count. And, you know, lives are at risk. We’ve seen it, you know, spar numerous times in the past, cars, aquaplaning. Yeah, I think it’s time with the technology that we have to make steps in this area.
Q: (Giles Richards – The Guardian) Question for all of you. Suzuka’s known very well as being a driver’s track. Could you just briefly tell us why it is you like driving this circuit, specifically the circuit, not the atmosphere, and your particular favourite parts of the track?
GR: Yeah, I mean, I agree with all the guys, but I think the undulations as well and the cambered corners make it really nice. I think all the circuits that we have, undulations – Portimão, Austin – that’s really fun to drive. And then corners that they’re banked into the apex, is really nice. Some of the circuits we have off-cambered corners, which all drivers hate, and it’s difficult to race. You can’t do different lines. So I think that combination of cambered corners and the ups and downs makes it pretty special.
Q: (Mat Coch – SpeedCafe.com) if I could just Turn 6 in Albert Park. What are your thoughts on that corner, the safety of it? Does something need to change there in future years, given your experiences?
GR: The corner’s amazing, probably one of the best corners on that circuit, so I wouldn’t want to see that corner change, but it is true. If you hit that wall, you just bounce back into the track. So, you know, it’s not just that corner. I think all… all circuits that have the barriers in certain positions, if it’s going to propel you back onto the circuit, that’s obviously not good. And we don’t want to have big runoffs. We don’t want to have tarmac runoffs. You know, I think everything is correct. Just the position of that wall, even if it’s, you know, closer to the track, but in line with the circuit, at least you wouldn’t bounce off into the racing line.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Another question to George, please. I know you said you wanted the chat around Fernando’s penalty to be history, but you also said without a penalty that would have opened up a can of worms. I just wondered, what are your thoughts on the rights and wrongs of what he was trying to do? Because isn’t there an argument in a certain way to say that adjusting your line or your breaking point to make things better for yourself is a legitimate racing tactic that’s long been a part of this thing?
GR: Thanks. Yeah, what you say is absolutely correct. Every driver is open to change their line, brake earlier, power through the corner, do whatever. When we start braking in the middle of a straight, downshifting, accelerating, upshifting again, then braking again for a corner, I think that goes beyond the realms of adjusting your line. And as I said, I was actually looking at my steering wheel in that straight as I’ve done every single lap prior. And when I looked up a hundred metres before the corner, I realised I was right behind Fernando rather than the half a second that I was. You know, we’ve got so many duties to take care of. when we’re driving, you know, looking, going around the racetrack, changing all of the settings on the steering wheel, making sure you’re in the right engine mode, taking care of the tyres, talking to your engineer, managing the deltas on your steering wheel when it’s an in-lap, out-lap, safety car, whatever it may be. If you add into the mix, you’re allowed to brake in the middle of the straight to gain a tactical, or get a tactical advantage. I think that is maybe one step too far. And the same when we talk about moving down the straight to get out of the slipstream. There was lots of talks about that in the past. It’s not overly dangerous, but it has a concertina effect if everybody’s moving around. And if suddenly if you brake test somebody and there’s 10 cars behind, it probably has a greater effect by the 10th driver than it does for the first driver behind. So as I said, I don’t think what Fernando did was extraordinarily dangerous, but it will open a can of worms if it wasn’t penalised.
Q: (Andrew Mckirdy – AFP) A question for George. Sebastian Vettel has suggested that he might be interested in making a comeback to Formula 1 and that he’s been speaking to Toto Wolff. How would you feel if that was to actually come to pass?
GR: Yeah, I mean, Sebastian’s a great person and he’s a four-time world champion and for sure his personality is missed on the grid and I think it’s important that we have the best 20 drivers in the world all competing for race wins and championships. So, as I said before… I’m really happy and open to have anybody as my teammate, you know, whether it’s world champion, whether it’s a rookie, it doesn’t change how I go about my business. And yeah, as I said, we’ll welcome anybody.
Source: FIA.com
