Russell Made 'Step Backwards' But 'Bounced Back' Towards End Of 2023 Says Chandhok

Thursday, 28 December 2023 at 06:00

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Former F1 driver Karun Chandhok evaluated the 2023 season of the Mercedes driver George Russell, who finished eighth in the Drivers' Championship.

George Russell lagged behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton during the 2023 season when he ended the year 59 points and five Championship positions behind the seven-time World Champion.

Sky Sports F1 Podcast Karun Chandhok pointed out that this season was a step back for the British driver as he finished the previous season in fourth place with precisely 100 more points:

"He’s got 100 fewer points than he got in 2022, only two podiums I think, this year, so it was a step backwards by his own admission."

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The 25-year-old recently revealed the 2023 season had been the psychologically toughest in his career. He made a few crucial mistakes that cost him many points during the Canadian and the Singapore Grand Prix. Chandhok continued:

"I think there were also two fairly costly errors. I think Canada, he was running fourth or fifth when he hit the wall coming out of the chicane and then later retired the car."

The problem was that both the retirements in Canada and in Singapore were purely driver errors Russell couldn't afford when competing against the seven-time World Champion. Moreover, the mistake in Singapore happened on the final lap of the race and cost the Brit a podium.

“And obviously Singapore is the more high-profile one where he was running third, so that was a healthy haul of points and two possible podiums that went away."

On the other hand, the Brit seemed faster than his teammate during the last three races of the season, where he played a crucial role in securing second place in the Championship for his team. Chandhok added:

“So, I think that was disappointing but he bounced back a bit towards the end of the year. The qualifying gap between them was the closest it’s been across the entire field.

Russell showed during the 2023 Qualifications he has the one-lap pace to match Hamilton. Do you believe he could repeat his success from 2022 and beat his teammate again in 2024?