拉塞尔美国站速度糟糕，与安东内利反差鲜明
拉塞尔在美国大奖赛正赛仅列第八，落后夺冠的队友安东内利54秒，他将自己的速度形容为“糟糕透顶”。
困惑的乔治·拉塞尔对美国大奖赛上自己“糟糕”的速度找不到答案，这与志在夺冠的F1队友基米·安东内利形成了残酷反差。
拉塞尔最终第八完赛，落后分站冠军安东内利54秒；安东内利如今几乎已锁定在下周日墨西哥大奖赛加冕F1世界冠军。
安东内利本不太可能在奥斯汀就锁定冠军，但两位梅赛德斯车手之间的境遇差距如此之大，他差一点就提前做到了。
拉塞尔最终的差距和低迷名次，因五秒罚时的后果而被放大——这让他在比赛后半段被困在迈凯伦的奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里身后；但他对天空体育F1直言：“今天速度就是糟糕，这就是全部。
“那五秒大概让我丢了两三个位置。但在需要拿出速度的时候，速度不够好。”
拉塞尔尤其对糟糕的第一段 stint（ stint）感到警觉，这段表现甚至无法用陷入车流来合理解释，因为随着比赛推进，他落后伊萨克·哈贾尔的红牛赛车几秒钟。
这里本应有一些脏空气效应，但远不足以解释为什么拉塞尔平均每圈比安东内利慢零点八秒，并且越落越远，以至于早早采用两停策略的马克斯·维斯塔潘和夏尔·勒克莱尔都追上并重新超越了他，之后拉塞尔才终于进站。
拉塞尔称落后这么多很奇怪，随后不久他对包括 The Race 在内的媒体讲话时也没有答案，承认：“我需要给自己 24 小时来理清思路。”
第一段长距离 阶段是拉塞尔将整场比赛总结为“六圈好、五十圈糟”的重要原因。他第二次长距离使用硬胎的开局——在追上皮亚斯特里之前——是唯一相对亮点，但即便那时他也比安东内利每圈慢约零点一到零点二秒：更接近了，但仍然更慢，而且这是 stint 中可比较的部分，因为拉塞尔追皮亚斯特里时，安东内利也在追勒克莱尔。
“第一段 stint 节奏不好，但当我用硬胎出维修区后，大概有六圈我的圈速和基米一样，”拉塞尔说。“但后来我追上了奥斯卡，就是超不过去。”
皮亚斯特里的防守——以及/或者拉塞尔令人意外的难以发动进攻，仅在第37圈尝试一次便被挡回——确实毁了拉塞尔的比赛。他被困在皮亚斯特里的节奏里，迈凯伦让拉长的一停策略奏效，因此无法与安东内利的节奏直接比较。
不过拉塞尔的注意力在别处，因此强调：“我想弄明白为什么第一段 stint 节奏这么差。”但让困惑更深的是他补充道：“我需要和车队深入挖掘，因为当你落后这么多时，很难理解。”
目前所有的都只是理论。安东内利证明了升级后的梅赛德斯确实拥有出色的峰值表现，但拉塞尔可能正受困于人们谈论的那个狭窄的平衡窗口。
还有他们驾驶这些赛车和引擎的方式。拉塞尔和皮亚斯特里——领先车队中这一代赛车最挣扎的两位车手——本周末被队友碾压，这不可能只是巧合。
其中一部分原因一定在于他们在慢弯中操控赛车的舒适程度。在奥斯汀的排位赛中，拉塞尔在较快弯角能与安东内利匹敌，但在其他地方却持续落后。
安东内利显然更乐于应对车尾的滑动，并且在平衡推进程度而不让轮胎过度受力方面更为精准——但在奥斯汀，他总体上也更愿意牺牲一点入弯速度来最大化出弯表现。
如下方轨迹图所示，从12号弯到15号弯的损失被绘制出来，差值根据他们不同的入弯速度处理方式和出弯跑法而下降和上升，但最终安东内利在这一段结束时获得了决定性优势。
这也是安东内利相对于其他赛车特别强势的地方，而拉塞尔自从在这一段之前的11号弯出现一个小失误以来，就逐渐失去了对后轮温度的控制。
在排位赛中，拉塞尔在每个明显的慢速弯出弯处都比安东内利慢，而这些出弯处通常也通向主要的部署区域。
这里可能存在双重打击：安东内利在出弯和进入直道时携带更多速度，而且他在全油门方面的效率天生更高。而拉塞尔可能在不高效的油门区间花费更多时间。
梅赛德斯车队老板托托·沃尔夫推测，拉塞尔在梅赛德斯以领先姿态开启周末时表现最强，但当车队发现情况更艰难时，他受到的困扰更大——如果升级的特性会放大这种不适，这可能是第一个真实的例子。
“当我们将赛车调整到适合他的方式时，他绝对很快，”沃尔夫说。“但当它掉出那个工作窗口时，他就会挣扎。而且他比基米可能挣扎得更多。这是我们的责任。
“我们只需要和他一起弄清楚，为什么驾驶表现会有这么大的差异，因为乔治并不是比基米慢半秒、慢十分之三秒。绝对根本不是这种情况。
“那么他不喜欢的是什么？我们需要在改装赛车、以不同方式设置赛车让他跑快方面做些什么？”
在赛季已经深入到这个阶段还在问这些问题，考虑到拉塞尔近期的进步，这并不理想——他此前似乎在逐步缩小赛季中期对安东内利出现的最严重劣势。
但也值得强调，安东内利在奥斯汀表现极为出色，因此给拉塞尔形成了格外鲜明的反差。尽管外界对拉塞尔的状态百思不得其解，沃尔夫也承认，梅赛德斯本赛季同样没有预料到安东内利会有如此大的进步，而这正是他成长为一名高质量车手的最新例证。
安东内利在排位赛中表现出色，在赛车最强的环节充分压榨出圈速，也就是第一赛段的中高速连续弯，并且出色地控制后轮打滑，弥补了赛车整个周末在低速12、13和15号弯最薄弱的环节。
而在正赛中，得益于身后赛车互相缠斗、早早给他带来两秒的缓冲，他通过保持稳定优势，立刻化解了使用软胎的对手对他中性胎可能构成的任何威胁。
随后他毫无波澜地完成了一次进站策略，尽管对硬胎并不熟悉，而且策略是在第一段 stint 后于比赛中期才锁定的。甚至他在赛道限制上频繁试探的倾向，在关键时刻也完全得到了控制。
“在基米这边，主要的头条是，对我来说，这是他迄今为止奉献的最棒的一场比赛，”沃尔夫说道。“这是一场尚未成为冠军的冠军所展现的比赛，但非常出色。”
在一个标准极高的赛季中，这是一个大胆的论断——其中包括在摩纳哥的惊艳表现，以及最著名的，安东内利在蒙扎从第19位发车夺冠。或许安东内利最令人印象深刻的是他完成这一切的轻松自如。
没有锁定冠军的压力，因为一段时间以来这实际上已是板上钉钉的事，但即便经历了本赛季最大的失误——在阿塞拜疆排位赛中撞车——以及梅赛德斯随后在赛车升级上的波动，他依然毫不松懈。
这是两位车手之间形成鲜明对比的又一个例子。拉塞尔在顺境中拼得更凶，在逆境中则更容易、也更戏剧性地陷入低谷。对安东内利来说，这一切都如此自然，显得毫不费力，让他能够反复攀上新的高度——因此他认为，就自己和车队所做的工作而言，这一站的表现超过了蒙扎。
“蒙扎，我们显然拥有最快的赛车，”安东内利说。“我们就是超级快，所以从后面追上来当然非常特别，但那也是一条相对容易超车的赛道，而且我们那么快。
“毫无疑问，蒙扎是非常特别的一站，也是我会永远记住的一站。但这一站，就执行层面而言，可能更好，因为我们逐步积累、在整个周末逐步提升表现的方式非常出色。”
英文原文
A confused George Russell lacked answers for his “rubbish” pace at the United States Grand Prix, which contrasted brutally with his championship-bound Formula 1 team-mate Kimi Antonelli.
Russell finished eighth and 54 seconds behind race winner Antonelli, who is now all but guaranteed to become F1 world champion in next Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
It was unlikely that Antonelli would seal the deal in Austin but such was the difference in fortunes between the Mercedes drivers he very nearly pulled it off.
Russell’s final margin and his lowly position was exaggerated by the consequences of a five-second penalty that meant he got stuck behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in the second half of the race, but as he bluntly told Sky Sports F1: “The pace was just rubbish today, that’s the long and short of it.
“The five seconds probably cost me two or three positions. But the pace was not good enough when it needed to be.”
Russell was particularly alarmed by a poor opening stint that cannot even be explained satisfactorily by being in traffic, because he slipped back a few seconds behind Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull as it progressed.
There would have been some dirty air effect here, but not nearly enough to explain why Russell was eight tenths a lap slower than Antonelli on average and drifted so far away that early two-stoppers Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had caught and re-passed him before Russell finally came in.
Russell called it strange to be so far off, and when he spoke to media including The Race shortly afterwards he had no answers, admitting: “I need to give myself 24 hours to think clearly”.
That first stint is a large part of why Russell summed his race up as “six good laps, 50 bad laps”. The start of his second long stint on hards - before catching Piastri - the only relative bright spot, but even then he seemed around a tenth or two slower than Antonelli: closer, but still slower, and this is a comparable part of the stint because while Russell was catching Piastri, Antonelli was catching Leclerc.
“The pace wasn't good on the first stint, but when I came out of pits on the hard, I probably did six laps where I was lapping the same pace as Kimi,” Russell said. “But then I caught Oscar and I just couldn't overtake.”
Piastri’s defence - and/or Russell’s surprising difficulty in making a move, with only a single attempt on lap 37 rebuffed - did indeed kill Russell’s race. He was stuck at Piastri’s pace as McLaren made a stretched one-stop work, and so a direct comparison with Antonelli’s pace was not possible.
Russell’s focus was elsewhere, though, hence stressing: “I want to understand why the pace was so bad on the first stint”. But to compound the confusion he added: “I need to dig deep with my team because it's difficult to understand when you're so far off.”
All there are, for now, are theories. Antonelli proved that the upgraded Mercedes does have a wonderful peak, but Russell may be suffering from the narrow balance window that has been talked about.
There’s also the way they simply drive these cars and engines. It cannot be a coincidence that Russell and Piastri, the two chief strugglers of this generation of car among the leading teams, received a pasting from their team-mates this weekend.
Some of that must be in how comfortable they are manipulating the car in slow corners. Russell was there with Antonelli in the faster turns in qualifying at Austin, but consistently losing out elsewhere.
Antonelli definitely seems happier living with the rear moving around and is more precise in balancing how much to push that without over-stressing the tyres – but in Austin he was also, generally, willing to sacrifice a little bit of corner entry speed to maximise his exit.
As the below trace shows, charting the loss from Turn 12 to 15, the delta falls and rises based on their different entry speed approaches and runs off the corner, but it culminates in Antonelli eventually having a decisive advantage by the end of the sequence.
This is where Antonelli was particularly strong versus other cars too, whereas Russell has gradually lost control of rear tyre temperature ever since a small error way back before this sequence at Turn 11.
Russell was slower than Antonelli on every prominent slower corner exit in qualifying, and these usually lead into the main deployment zones too.
There could be a double whammy here, with Antonelli carrying more speed off the corner and onto the straight, but also being inherently more efficient in how he is often sharper onto full throttle. Whereas Russell potentially spends more time in an inefficient throttle range.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff theorised that Russell has been strongest when Mercedes has started weekends on the front foot but suffered more when it has found things tougher - if the upgrade’s characteristics can exaggerate that discomfort, this could have been the first real example of it.
“When we land the car in the way that suits him, he's absolutely fast,” said Wolff. “But when it drops out of that operating window, he struggles. And he struggles more than maybe Kimi. And that is on us.
“ We just have to work it out with him how there can be such a difference in driving in performance because George is not half a second slower, three tenths slower than Kimi. It's just absolutely not the case.
“So what is it that he doesn't like? What is it that we need to do in terms of modifying the car, setting it up in a different way for him to go fast?”
That these questions are still being asked deep into the season is not great given the recent progress Russell seemed to have made, chipping away at the worst of his deficit to Antonelli that emerged through the middle of the season.
But it’s also worth stressing that Antonelli was magnificent at Austin, and therefore presented Russell with an especially harsh contrast. For all of the head-scratching over Russell’s form, Wolff has admitted that Mercedes didn’t see such a big step from Antonelli this season coming either, with this being the latest example of what a high-quality driver he has evolved into.
Antonelli excelled in qualifying to wring the neck out of the car in its strongest parts around the lap, namely the medium and high speed Esses in the opening sector, and control the rear tyre slip excellently to mitigate where it had been weakest all weekend in the slow-speed Turns 12, 13 and 15.
And in the race, aided by cars squabbling behind and giving him a two-second buffer early on, he immediately neutralised any threat he might have faced from those on softs to his mediums by maintaining a steady advantage.
Then he executed a one-stop without any hint of fuss, despite unfamiliarity with the hard tyre and the strategy being locked in mid-race after the first stint. Even his tendency to flirt extensively with track limits seemed totally under control when it counted.
“On Kimi's side, the main headline is that, for me, the best race that he's delivered so far,” Wolff said. “The race of a champion who isn't the champion yet, but exceptional.”
That is a big claim in a season of extremely high standards that includes a tremendous showing in Monaco and, most famously, Antonelli’s win from 19th on the grid at Monza. Perhaps what was most impressive about Antonelli was the ease with which he produced this.
There is no pressure to secure the title, because it has been effectively a foregone conclusion for a while, but he has been relentless even through his biggest mistake of the season - crashing in qualifying in Azerbaijan - and Mercedes’ subsequent wobble with its car upgrade.
That is another example of the contrast between the two drivers. Russell’s fighting harder for the good moments and falls into the bad ones more easily and dramatically. For Antonelli, this is all so natural, and comes across as effortless, allowing him to repeatedly scale new heights - hence his agreement this topped Monza in terms of the job he and the team did.
“Monza, we clearly had the fastest car,” said Antonelli. “We were just super quick, so of course it was incredibly special coming from the back, but it was also a track where it was relatively easy to overtake, and we were so quick.
“Definitely, Monza was a super special one, and one that I will remember forever. But, this one probably, in terms of execution, was better, because the way we built up and the way we built the performance throughout the weekend was very good.”
The Race ·
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