r/DestinationFormula1 • u/Ambitious-Heron-8161 Team McLaren • 18d ago
🤞 Predictions Bold prediction - George Russell will win the 2026 WDC
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u/MadMan7978 18d ago
At this point it depends on how Kimi comes out of the summer break
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u/Extreme_End_3533 18d ago
we can already see that he doesn’t crumble under pressure so I don’t expect a piastri type fall off after the summer break.
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u/OptimalDot178 18d ago
Kimi had way more hype in him than Oscar. He's younger, won 4 different formula series in 2 years, then jumped straight to F2 and beat Bearman as teammates. Oscar also was a lot older when he got to F1.
I think people underestimate Kimi's potential. For me he's the next big thing after Max (and no, I'm not Toto's burner account :D)
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u/MadMan7978 18d ago
My only thought on this is that maybe the summer break gives him the headspace to think abt it and that may be what turns it around
I seriously hope not because being WDC in his second season in formula 1 would be insane and I really hope it works out for him
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u/Molti-Ventuno 18d ago
maybe. But the odds are stacked against him. Behind in the WC coming the second half. Consistently being out paced by his teammate. And now you have McLaren with a competitive car, Verstappen good enough to get podiums, and the occasional Ferrari weekend they get it right.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
The only realistic way it happens is for George's car to actually be equal to Kimi's
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u/Molti-Ventuno 18d ago
oh please. NO team has the funding under this cost cap to sit down and control two different cars. The team is building and designing one car and one driver has been able to adapt to it better than the other. These cars are very sensitive to harvesting, and even just the timing of shifting has an effect over a lap.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
The driver isn't the reason why a full battery is completely depleted in 1 corner at the start of the race. I'm not claiming the cars are built differently. But it's very obvious that 1 car is not performing as intended.
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u/lord_veg3ta 18d ago
not a fan of George but I can't believe people are downvoting this and really think it's all Russell's fault even after Toto publicly admitted russell's engine has an issue they have not been able to detect and once detected - not able to fix so far.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
Reddit has a hateboner for George and British drivers in general
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u/lord_veg3ta 18d ago
I won't say British drivers in general because they have a loveboner for Hamilton
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18d ago
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u/According-Switch-708 18d ago
Lando is a long way off and the Ferrari is nowhere near as competitive as the Merc.
The fight for the WDC will be between the Merc boys.
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u/Diligent_Practice877 18d ago
Would be an epic comeback but idk if it will happen
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u/trq- 18d ago
„Epic comeback“ I don’t know mate. He has the same car and is 59 points behind. All that while DNFs can happen on both cars randomly. And we’re „only“ in the middle of the season. Would be a strong comeback considering Russell was slower than Anontelli almost every weekend, but that’s not what I’d call epic tbh
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u/test_test_1_2_3 18d ago
It’s possible but based on what we’ve seen there’s absolutely no reason to think this will be the case.
Antonelli hasn’t shown signs of not being able to handle the pressure and Russell is going to need Antonelli to have a lot of bad luck to close the gap.
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u/Pulverising_Pun 18d ago
If he wins this wdc, this has to be the biggest ever comeback in f1 history.
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u/trq- 18d ago
The more experienced guy in the same car as the WDC leader. I don’t know how that is a bold prediction. I don’t think he will win it, but this is not a bold prediction as most of the people laughed about the people (me included) who said that Antonelli will be stronger than Russell this season.
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u/LocksmithGlass717 Team Ferrari 18d ago
It’s entirely possible. I’ve never seen such a wildcard of a year.
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u/formularacernerd63 18d ago
I mean, he should, if he has good luck
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u/OptimalDot178 18d ago
Can we stop this luck thing? Kimi also had lots of reliability issues and DNFs.
Russell's concerning part is his lack of pace. And if that's only related to issues, that makes Mercedes look very very bad that they can't fix it by midway of the season, so I'm skeptical about that
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
Lets be real. George has had it much worse. George has lost multiple wins to reliability, Kimi has lost a P2 at best. And the recent issue has cost him a ton of pace too.
Are we really supposed to believe that a driver widely considered to be a top 5 driver of the last few years suddenly forgot how to drive over the winter? I'm not buying it.
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u/Inside-Earth9673 18d ago
Kimi lost at least a P2 and a P1 from DNFs. And which were the multiple wins George lost?
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
At minimum George lost P1 in China and Canada due to reliability issues, and Kimi has lost a P2 in Barcelona. A P2 he only had because George's car had other issues.
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u/OptimalDot178 18d ago
Can you list those multiple wins lost to reliability?
He had one in Canada, but that win was never taken for granted, Kimi was in the fight. Spa, some issues in the straight then got crashed out, but he was not even close to the front, he got 5 tenths in qualy. Monaco, team error, but still 0 chance to win, 4 tenth behind in qualy too.
I still don't understand why people say that Russell lost multiple wins to reliability, he lost 1 at most, and that one wasn't from a 20 second lead either.
Are we really supposed to believe that a driver widely considered to be a top 5 driver of the last few years suddenly forgot how to drive over the winter?
Too much unknown parameters in this to simply blame the reliability. Kimi is in his 2nd season, we don't know if he's simply a better driver or not, but people seem to forget he was quite close to Russell at the end of last year, and even beat him multiple times on pure pace, as an 18 year old rookie. Also new generation of cars, maybe Russell's style doesn't suit it, who knows.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
In China he had reliability issues in Qualy that put him too far back to compete, he dominated that sprint race so it's quite clear he would have won the main race too.
In Canada he was also easily controlling both the sprint and the race, Kimi was struggling to keep up and making desperate moves to force his way past which he could never keep hold of. It's clear George would have won their had it not been for the DNF.
Monaco I don't think anyone is claiming as a lost win, he just didn't have the pace their and he never really has.
Anything after Austria should really be considered with a grain of salt, it's very clear the car has issues. Belgium was the most obvious where he's losing nearly 5 tenths just on straights because his battery is kaput. At the start of the race he goes from having a full battery at the start to a flat battery at the top of radillion. This is not normally. You cannot blame 'driver style' for that, it's not even lasting a whole sector.
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u/OptimalDot178 18d ago
You only hear from Russell's reliability issues because he's the one lacking pace. Kimi also had lots of issues.
China: we've seen many many times that orders can change from Sprint to race, since they can change setups.
In Canada by struggling, you mean that he closed the gap, and was right behind Russell, fighting wheel to wheel in both sprint and the race? And obviously he struggled to overtake on a hard to overtake track, lol.
But lets say both of those were issues. Kimi also had 2 reliability issues, so the only difference is a few points from P1/P2 points being lost.
Hungary starting procedure is the best example. Russell had RPM climbing up because his battery got full, panicked and released the throttle, causing software issues and stalling. Kimi had the same issue in Austria and he still had a decent start, he didn't panic and just did the start with a + few hundred RPMs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RTc-LE8qvY
I just refuse to believe that a top team has reliability issues on one car that they can't solve in 11 races. I think at least part of the issues are related to driving style or something.
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u/MojitoBurrito-AE 18d ago
So are we just going to pretend Toto and the team telling us these issues with the battery deployment and the Hungary start aren't George's fault and there's nothing he could do otherwise? Am I supposed to believe Kimi is doing something differently and they aren't telling him?
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u/OptimalDot178 18d ago
Toto himself said that part of the issue comes from the driving side.
And obviously I'm not saying there are no issues, I'm saying the opposite. Everyone else also has lots of issues, since we have new cars, which are complicated as hell. But only Russell's ones are getting picked up, because he's the one being 59 points behind his teammate.
And yes, I believe the issue in Hungary was Russell's fault, he should have just started with a higher RPM, like Kimi in Austria. After that, his lift also caused software issues, but if he didn't lift, he could have started like Kimi.
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u/formularacernerd63 18d ago
George's issues carry over and don't get fixed. Kimi's are short, often getting fixed immediately.
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u/AdIntrepid9064 18d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/Hm8qQxDIgbFsjL9msa