George Russell's damning verdict on overtaking in F1 -"It's slowly going in the wrong direction for overtaking"

George Russell has said that overtaking in F1 could get worse. The 2023 season has seen overtaking prove to be a major issue. Races like Saudi Arabia and Baku that produced some fantastic action in 2022 were realtively dull this year.

Russell has given his take on why that has happened. He feels that the development direction of cars was not envisioned by the F1 or FIA. To exacerbate things, a lack of slipstreaming effect has had a compounding effect in making overtaking tougher.

Explaining to the media, including RacingNews365, the Mercedes driver said:

"I think it is, and don't know exactly why. F1 created these regulations to help overtaking and following, and since they were introduced, every single team has sort of developed naturally away from their initial intentions as you develop the car. Every car on the grid is very different to what, let's say, they were intended to look like 18 months or two years ago, or whenever it was."

He added:

"I think the overtaking is slowly getting more difficult but also because the slipstream isn't as large with these new cars, so it's slowly going in the wrong direction for overtaking."

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George Russell on battle behind Red Bull and Mercedes

George Russell is hopeful that the upgrades will help Mercedes make progress. He did admit that it would be tough to have a close battle with Ferrari and Aston Martin, with the stakes only being a P3 finish as the best possible result:

"I'm confident that we'll make progress, but, of course, we want the competition. The competition we've got at the moment between Ferrari and Aston Martin, every race we go to is really close between us in qualifying. The pace is really close in the race, and if that was the fight for victory, it would be one of the most exciting seasons we've seen in a long, long time."

He added:

"It's obviously just a shame that there's two cars well out in front, so forget about those two and just watch the race for P3! It may be a bit more exciting, but yeah, it is challenging."

George Russell has not had the best of seasons in 2023. The Mercedes driver has been unable to secure a podium yet, while last year, he bagged a podium in Australia by this point in the season last year.