George Russell claimed his first Formula One sprint race win at the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, maintaining his perfect start to the season after a closely fought contest that highlighted both Mercedes’ strengths and the evolving competitive order under the 2026 regulations.
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This is just your idealization. If they decide it's not worth spending more time and money on this car they can work on the next car. Engineers certainly won't sitting around idle in any case...
omg... it was just an exaggeration to illustrate my point...
If you would think a bit, would never have thought otherwise, as I was talking about how the time of the engineers are the most important...
Nevermind...............
You were talking nonsense. And you pretend to have been witty.
Please stop. You do not understand what others are saying, and you arrogantly mocking and molesting them.
No, I do not pretend, you just do not understand language and thoughts... stop.
Montoya suggested in the coverage that Russell’s “lift” may also have gained him some charge, so whatever he lost in the corner he gained back in electrical energy - this could explain that specific difference but doesn’t mean it’s not also true that the Mercedes still has a significant engine advantage.
Montoya is not an engineer. I don't expect him to know about 'electrical impedance losses' , 'rubber hysterisis' or 'entropy' (for Pete's sake) , but didn't expect him to not know about energy conversion efficiency. There is no way to 'more than compensate' the time loss due to lifting by time gain via extra deployment. It's better commentators who have no technical knowledge keep to the driving aspects and not go for 'extra smart points' by guess-broadcasting their idea of science/engg.
Maybe the specifics are wrong, but the idea is correct that George would have gotten some charge back to deploy. It's not worth the time he lost, sure, but reduces the loss.
Who said ‘more than compensate’? Who are you quoting?
It’s clearly not faster to lift there or they’d do it every time, but if Leclerc loses .150 on that straight, how much more was the lift worth? Half a tenth to a tenth, probably no more.
Not sure why you think that’s so wrong (or what rubber hysteresis has to do with this).
I certainly don’t want to enter the annoying “my favourite driver” yin-yang that’s become an unfortunate part of this thread. What I will say is that, from a team point of view, both drivers did what you would want from them:
(1) Leclerc bounced back, no mistakes, and his pace was good. I don’t think it’s been a super smooth weekend - and missing FP1 probably didn’t help - nor do I think that was a signature barnstorming lap. But, as he said, we didn’t want him to take too many risks, he just needed a clean, solid session and that’s what he did. Given the bit of luck that impacted Kimi (and Max) potentially being ahead, it gives him a great opportunity for the race
(2) Hamilton continues to be solid and executing well. He made a mistake on the first run but then still did a good second lap and seems to have overcome his qualifying struggles from the previous rules era. He’s not going to be the same driver as 10 years ago but that has pros and cons - a tenth or two of one lap pace maybe lost but a level of experience that allows him to maximise races gained.
The even bigger thing will be if and how they combine tomorrow to take it to Mercedes tomorrow. That doesn’t mean explicitly working together but it does mean not costing each other time and may mean accepting (in advance) the possibility of splitting the strategy to give Ferrari as a team the best shot of putting Mercedes under pressure.