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Williams driver George Russell says the conditions during the Turkish Grand Prix meant that the race was “not what Formula 1 is about” given how limited the cars were by grip and tyre struggles.
Russell conceded it will have made for a good spectacle for those watching, but argued the conditions and the difficulty in getting the tyres into their working temperature range turned it into a lottery.
“The laptime varies by two to three seconds a lap if you get the tyres working or not, it’s unbelievable,” said Russell in response to a question from The Race.
“This weekend has not been really what Formula 1 is about.
“I’m sure the show looked great and I’m sure I would have loved watching it from my sofa at home, but it’s just been a lottery for everybody out there.
“I love driving in wet conditions, but this was just something else.”
Pressed on the fact that the race will have been popular with fans, Russell warned that limiting the cars so much and making the drivers look “like idiots” isn’t good for the show.
While he conceded that F1 perhaps could work towards a happy medium between such chaotic races and the more predictable grands prix staged in normal conditions, he insisted F1 races should not be a lottery.
“If you want chaos and carnage and drivers being made to look like idiots, there are other categories and sports out there you can go and watch,” he said.
“Formula 1 is about the best cars, the best drivers, the best teams going into the best tracks and showing what they can do. And this weekend was not that.
“People from the outside think ‘how can you spin when you’re going so slow?’
“Well, actually, these cars aren’t designed to go slow and we were being forced to go slow this weekend and the tyres were working in a window they’re not designed to work.
“Actually, it was more dangerous when there was a safety car or red flag when you had to back off, because we lost all the tyre temperature.
“Even at the end of the race, I backed off and then almost spun off on my in-lap after the race because I lost 30 degrees of tyre temperature in half a lap. Then it’s like skating on ice.
“I’m sure I would have loved it from the sofa. There’s got to be maybe a midpoint somewhere that I’m sure F1 can learn from and we’re not just going here and rolling the dice week in week out.”
Russell was caught out by the conditions before the race, understeering into the barrier at the pit entry at the end of a reconnaissance lap.
He was able to take the start with a fresh front wing from the pits but never intended to start from the grid given he was at the back thanks to penalties and wanted to capitalise on starting the race on intermediate tyres that were fresh out of the tyre warmers.
Having run as high as 11th, Russell lost temperature in his intermediates when he was forced wide in battle with Lando Norris, and he couldn’t get it back and also could not get his fresh intermediates working after his pitstop.
“Literally, I was tip-toeing around those laps to grid,” said Russell, who finished 16th. “It was the least amount of grip I’ve ever experienced, ever in an F1 car – probably ever in my life, to be honest.
“I came into the pits, I turned at slow speed and I just went straight on. I wasn’t overly concerned because I went into the wall at such a slow speed, I knew that the guys would be able to recover it.
“We were always planning to start from the pitlane on hot tyres considering our engine penalty, but it just summed the Pirelli tyres from this weekend.
“In F1, you work in milliseconds and tenths, not in seconds. It was just a weekend that I don’t think anybody’s ever experienced before.”
Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo, who finished 10th after a spin having struggled with the intermediate rubber that most of the race was on, shared Russell’s concerns.
He suggested that the failure to showcase the pace of the cars, with nobody getting within three seconds of Sebastian Vettel’s pole position time from last time F1 raced here in 2011 despite the cars fundamentally being significantly faster, showing how difficult it was even in the dry.
He is content to consider this weekend an anomaly, but asked what F1 can learn from this weekend to improve the show in the future he gave the idea it could inspire any future direction short shrift.
“This is not the answer,” said Ricciardo. “I knew everyone sitting on the couch today was going to have a fun and exciting one to watch but to be honest, I don’t know if we learn anything from this weekend because we’ll probably never come to a situation like it with this level of grip.
“This weekend is an anomaly, but if it was all the time it would feel like a robbery.
“Why are we putting so much into these cars if we can’t actually push the limits?
“So from a driver and a technical point of view, we didn’t really get to push an F1 car this weekend.
“Sure, it made it tricky and exciting, but it was hard to get a lot of satisfaction out of it from a driving point of view.
“I obviously sympathise, it’s a last-minute calendar so I don’t want to go too hard on them but I don’t recommend they resurface the tracks like this before we come here deliberately.”
