Russell reinforces driver frustrations after Vettel fine
General
George Russell assumed the role of the GPDA director from Romain Grosjean in March of 2021. A role which has seen the young driver become a voice for the drivers in the paddock as he's shown extreme maturity within the role and has acted favourably across all tasks of the job.
How did we get here?
Since the finale in Abu Dhabi last year, questions have been asked of the race directors and stewards not only from the public but the drivers themselves as they strive for consistency. An issue which has frequented headlines and driver interviews and still doesn't have a solution for yet. This boiled over on Friday night, as Sebastian Vettel had been seen leaving a driver's meeting early and without permission, which apparently was about the drivers pushing for more consistent stewarding and Vettel's frustrations growing. Vettel is also a director of the GPDA alongside Russell.
Russell's comments today
After Vettel was called to the stewards after the incdient on Friday night, Russell spoke to the press, to voice the frustrations again. "I think it’s very difficult for the FIA, very difficult for the drivers, there’s been a lot of borderline decisions or manoeuvres, whether it’s defending or whether it’s track limits in a racing scenario like last weekend at Silverstone We don’t want to be dishing out penalties left right and centre but there needs to be an element of consistency somewhere"
"We’re never going to solve this issue until you solve the circuit, and Turn 4 here in Austria, you’ll never have that issue [because of the gravel], but compare that with Turn 1 or Silverstone last week, you’ll always have the issue, so yeah. I do agree that we need to stick with one race director, we need to have more consistency with the stewarding. We come to the following event and often the steward from the previous event is not there so there’s no accountability or no explanations of decisions." The Brit continued
"I don’t envy them, it’s by no means an easy job at all, but I guess we just want consistency. Yesterday it was just one meeting that we were talking about specific topics, but over the course of the year, a number of drivers have commented on that. When you had one race director things were consistent.” was the Mercedes' driver concluding remarks.