After an eventful F1 battle Royale between George Russell and Valtteri Bottas at Imola, we look at why Russell can do without Mercedes AMG F1, along with Toto Wolff’s scathing and uncalled for comments – The cold war era was one where Russia invaded and subjugated some smaller eastern European states and persuaded to hate ‘The West’ on the other side of the iron curtain.
Well, the Beast from the East is beginning to blow across the F1 paddock as world class wind up expert Christian Horner is set to regularly poke the all dominant Toto who is used to having things all his own way.
Given Geroge Russell’s incredible drive for Mercedes when poor Lulu got sick with Covid-19 last year, Mercedes should’ve booted out the hapless out of contract ‘Valerie’ and recruited Russell as the future beyond Lord Lewis.
Yet they did not. Leaving a driver clearly quicker than Badass Valerie to rot in F1’s second worst team. Haas are the worst team – just in case nobody noticed. Haas rhymes with arse (ass) by the way. Just saying.
Haas F1 took big bucks from their new rookie drivers’ sponsors and then decided to spend sweet FA on this year’s car and save it and the interest to fund the assault on P9 in 2022.
Now being forced into a 3rd year at Williams when he knows he is better than that, George is most probably simmering below the surface over his ‘development’ by Mercedes.
The rumblings of injustice exploded with volcanic spectacularly in Imola at the weekend. Following their dramatic coming together, Russell called Bottas a “fucking prick” and stormed over to ask the winded Finn “are you trying to fucking kill us both”?
Valerie flicked the bird at him, so George bitch slapped him with the backhand of his driving club.
It was Russell’s comments after the race, which raised an eyebrow or two in the paddock. He accused Bottas of driving differently when he saw it was George’s Williams about to fly past. The implication is that Bottas knows Russell is lined up for his seat and was desperate to particularly defend extra strong to deny George bragging rights.
This accusation got to Toto who bluntly responded that Russell was talking “bullshit”. The Mercedes boss added, “Valtteri had a bad first 30 laps, and shouldn’t have been there. But George should have never launched into this manoeuvre, considering that the track was drying up.”
This will surely incense Russell further, given he believes he should be in the Mercedes AMG F1 team right now.
Unless Mercedes give George a contract for the big team for 2022, he will surely start to look elsewhere for his future. But where could that be?
Had the stewards enforced the ‘safe return’ to the track regulations, Hamilton would’ve been sanctioned heavily possibly even demoted from the points – or given a race ending stop and go penalty.
This would’ve seen Russell would have do for two Mercedes AMG F1 drivers on the same lap.
Further as Toto codedly suggested of Russell’s on track move. “It meant taking risks, and the other car is a Mercedes in front of him. In any driver’s development, for a young driver, you must never lose this global perspective.”
Decrypted. If you want to stay in the Mercedes programme – think hard about who is the hand that feeds you.
As if to add insult to injury Toto observed, “Our car is almost a write-off in a cost-cap environment that is certainly what we needed, and probably it’s going to limit upgrades that we’re able to do.”
When presented with Wolff’s comments regarding more caution, Russell was adamant he’d done nothing wrong.
“I’ve never been in a position where I’m fighting against Mercedes and Williams has not been fighting against Mercedes in probably five years, so it’s not even crossed my mind how I would fight against the Mercedes. As I said, it was not a reckless move. The move was totally on.
“Was I in the wrong? I caused the crash by spinning but was I wrong to go for the overtake? Absolutely not.”
A polite response tantamount to, ‘Fuck you Toto’, I posit.
If I were Horner, Id employ an espionage agent deep undercover inside the Mercedes F1 empire, to steal secrets, cause sabotage and in general disrupt the happy place that is Toto’s world.
Step up George Russell.
After today’s Albon-esque efforts for RBR, Perez one-year contract may be fading already. Red Bull recruiting Russell would do for Toto and confident in his future, George can go head to head with the failing Finn as he slides down the starting order week in week out.
The Williams car may not be the best, but today it assaulted the black silver arrows with the ferocity of a Big Cat leaping at a flying gazelle and tearing the flesh from it’s back whilst on the run.
Trashing Mercedes upgrade budget may just be the edge Red Bull Racing need to get Max over the WDC line.
Who said crashes are not important, Danny Ric?
As much as i would relish a Verstappen – Russell team at Red Bull, I doubt it happens. Toto is well aware after ditching Wehrlein and Ocon, that another junior who doesn’t get a chance at M-B will wreck his junior program. If Tsunoda does well this season he could well be in a Red Bull in 2022 and RB will need as much tech assistance as they can get from Honda and Tsunoda may be the carrot for RB to get that. The more likely team for Russell if he doesn’t go to M-B is McLaren replacing Ricciardo, who is an expensive driver getting thoroughly beaten by Norris.
Thoughtful analysis @Cav. It appears to me that Toto’s power at Mercedes AMG F1 is on the wain. All the talk of day to day stepping back over time will not inspire the troops. Him codedly threatening George Russell was also rather ‘reactive’ and again diminishes the cool collected image of a man in total control. George will be attractive in F1 without Toto or Mercedes given his performance when Sir Lewis had Covid.
Russell isn’t forced into a third year with Williams. He signed a three year contract in 2019. So going to Mercedes would have meant paying off his contract.
For next year, though, if he isn’t in a Mercedes, he is free to go, as his contract as a Mercedes junior also ends this year.
Nowt like a bit of fact to get in the way of a good “judge” article 🙂
Are you completely stupid? Vettel had a contract. Meant sweet FA. F1 contracts are written to be broken given the effort spent on exit clauses Given the gazillions Merc pay for F1 God Lewis, they could not only just buy pit George’s Williams contract – but probably afford to give them 1 years F1 budget if they so chose.
Who, me?
Vettel didn’t have a contract for 2021 – it ran out at the end of 2020 and they decided in 2019 that it wouldn’t be renewed – https://the-race.com/formula-1/ferrari-never-offered-vettel-a-new-contract/
My initial comment was a supportive reply to the factual comment from Ger
The judge is a F u c k i n g n o b! A judge of his own universe. Sly digs at Lewis aside… he has zero insight and zero likeability. Good luck with your s h I t site x x x x MWAH xx x x
And a wonderful journalist:
“This would’ve seen Russell would have do for two Mercedes AMG F1 drivers on the same lap”
Instead of this lousy, expletive filled rant, how about he taking a little more care with writing skills and editing?
For the record, while I may have my own thoughts on this matter, the above ^^^^ was not posted by me
Wolff should be thanking Russell – he did Mercedes a favour.
By the time of the crash, Lewis was in the wall and ended up a lap down while he backed out (into oncoming traffic).
Bottas was going nowhere fast (or should that be “somewhere, slow”?) – the fact that the Williams was breezing past is testament to that. Russell would have got past sooner or later on a different part of the track while Lewis was trying to thread his way back through the pack just to unlap himself.
Instead, Lewis got to unlap himself for free and then pushed past the field to second. He’d have had to do that nearly *twice* (including getting past Verstappen once) in the same amount of time to have had the same result.
It could easily have been at best a handful of points for Mercedes instead of a healthy 19.
Bottas will be just fine…
Stopped reading after “Valerie”. Had earlier thought “Lulu” was a bit childish. Who writes this garbage?
What a stupid article to be honest .Made up f bull sxxt
and hate !!!!
What a plonker!
I guess that’s all we needed. The “Hannity” of F1. Just as I thought sports commentators were serious. ..yhis.
Oh I forgot… Fox is not about news it’s the Kardashian opinion on life.
This site seems to be more of the same…..
There seems to always be a place for a bit of hate and bile..
Maybe I’ll set my quality level higher and start reading the Sun……
Sarcastic ignorant and I’ll informed. You should try to join your high school paper and write about pimples and your first girlfriend.
Juvenile drivel…..
Let’s wait for Lulu to win another championship.
At least he isn’t forced to write bollocks like this to earn a living.
Absolutely 👍 what sort of journalist mocks drivers like that and trts his hardest to start trouble with the shite stiring? Shit articles shite skills and absolutely has no idea what’s going on regarding the crash. PS there not a chance in hell that George would race for redbull!!!
It would be a very sad day for the sport if team managers started threatening potential transfers to not drive their best for their current teams.
If that takes off, might as well pack it in and go home,there’s no more racing in F1 racing.
Apart from Russell has now issued a complete and unequivocal apology and said he was in the wrong, so the main thrust of your article is basically rubbish.
Anyway, if Russell and Verstappen were team mates, neither of them would finish a race.
They’d take each other out by the end of the first lap and Red Bull would finish below Williams in the constructor’s title.
And as for your disparaging comments about Sir Lewis, you just sound like one of those seething little, closet racist, pathetic armchair critics with not only car, but penis envy too. 😂
Grow up and learn about F1 before you humiliate yourself any more than you already have. 😂😂😂
Proof positive that Hammy fanboi’s are the most insufferable and clueless segment of F1.
Hardly, and coming from a prancing horse fanboi too…. LOL
Just because someone crticies the “judge”, they have to be a Lewis fan do they?
Proof positive of the sites dumbing down to the lowest common denominator, in search of clickage, more like…. “ooh, look at me being all edgy and controversial with my articles”
Yet, you seem to be on this site all the time……
Didn’t realise I had my own fanbase
This article is the F1 version of everything that is wrong in this world – too many idiots given a free platform to spout uninformed, crass hatred. Just like every other idiot with a platform though, there are sadly others who approve or encourage…
I’ll be making sure Google doesn’t recommend any other snippets of garbage from this festering pool of juvenile spite in my news feed. People who peddle this low level tripe are wasting the life they’ve been given.
What kind of garbage did I just read? Is this post written by a 12 year old?