For serious, though, I pointed out after Austin last year that cutting across the entire track at the first turn of the first lap is awful racecraft from Sainz, and got shouted down by Russell-haters.
Aren’t you supposed to yield to cars ahead of you? I think both were at fault for being on the inside and back a bit when it was pretty obvious that whoever is in front is going to squeeze to the apex, especially when there is traffic to their outside.
That being said, T1 at the start is always chaos and it’s surely not easy to keep track of where every single other car is and what they’re doing. I don’t really blame Piastri, and I wouldn’t blame Russel like I had if he hadn’t been all indignant like “he just turned into me what was he doing?” when he’d thrown himself down the inside a few other times and suffered the same fate. Like, mate the problem is trying to make that move in a crowd…live to fight another lap! And, to be fair, he seems to do it a lot less now.
As is often pointed out, the team radio messages are sent in the heat of the moment, and when the red mist comes down every driver is quite sure they’re in the right. Piastri also came across team radio asking WTF Sainz was doing chopping across the apex out of nowhere, when by the strict reading of the rules Sainz did in fact have the right to the racing line. Rules aside, though, it’s just poor racecraft to move around unpredictably at race start, and frequently ends with you throwing your race away on the first lap.
In piastri’s case I think sainz just locked up. I don’t really think it’s an indication of him doing it on purpose. But yeah, some fans have something against Russell. You crash into one bottas years ago and the world never lets it down.
Russel just has that reverse je ne sais quoi. I hate to admit it, but he has a very punchable face and he never did wrong by me :(
Dude’s got that classic British fop facial structure working against him. Does he do dumb stuff on track sometimes? Yeah, but I don’t think that’s why people are so ready to heap blame on him.
I can see that, but I have a soft spot for dorky drivers who don’t come from super rich families.
