George Russell won the Austrian Grand Prix after race leaders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris collided and took themselves out of contention. It was a bit of a lucky break for Russell, but he still managed to stick around in third for most of the race in prime position to take the win when the opportunity presented itself.
It seems like in the wake of it though, everyone collectively forgot how Formula 1 works. There has been a lot of criticism and hate slung at Russell for this win. And if the title of this article didn’t give it away already: I think that is completely unfair.
"His win is undeserved and illegitimate"
A lot of people are pretending like Russell didn’t deserve that win or that it’s not a “real” victory, because he only got it after the two frontrunners crashed into each other. In case you hadn’t noticed: that’s racing. Verstappen won his first race in 2016 after Hamilton and Rosberg took each other out on the opening lap. Hamilton himself would have lost his title challenge in 2008 if it weren’t for the infamous Glock going slow. Ocon and Ricciardo won races in 2021 under extraordinary circumstances, Gasly benefitted from Hamilton getting a stop-and-go penalty in 2020 to take his first win, and almost every driver in my “Long awaited first victory” series needed a bit of luck to win their first race. None of these people had a car that could challenge for the win on pure pace, but they were still there to seize the opportunity when it presented itself. Are we now going to pretend that any of those wins aren’t deserved or legitimate either? There used to be a time where we’d describe that as: racing.
The old adage still stands: to finish first, you first have to finish. Interestingly enough, Russell himself also acknowledged that he got lucky. He called it a gift and admitted that they probably only had the car to get P3. But he also gleefully accepted the win. And rightfully so.
And then of course, there are the overzealous fans of Lewis Hamilton. They have kept up their conspiracy theory that Mercedes is actively sabotaging Hamilton in order to make Russell look better, and this was only more proof of that for them. Setting aside the ridiculousness of Mercedes paying a driver an insane amount of money only to then make sure he doesn’t win them as many points as he could have, I also can’t fathom how they think that this win should have gone to Lewis. He was nowhere near the fight and couldn’t keep up with the likes of Russell, Sainz and Piastri. Apparently he had some damage to the car, which might explain a thing or two, but still: let Russell enjoy his win.
The hatred doesn't stop at Russell though
And while we’re at it: lay off the Verstappen and Norris hate too! We can argue for hours about whose fault it was, whether they should have fought as much as they did, who should have left space for who, but one thing stands above all: this is part of racing too. Sometimes it’s fierce and ferocious, and sometimes it means the drivers make contact and crash. Many Verstappen haters have immediately started up the narrative again that Verstappen is incapable of having a fair race, that he can only overtake if he’s in the faster car or if he can break the other driver. Let me tell you: as aggressive as Verstappen can be on track, it’s nothing compared to what people like Schumacher and Senna did, and we treat them (rightfully) as the greatest to ever grace the sport with their presence.
Meanwhile on the Norris side of things, he is getting lambasted for supposedly being too hotheaded and not mature enough. His critics claim that he could have had the win if he had just not attacked Verstappen like that (not sure how that tracks, but I’ve long ago given up on trying to understand the supposed logic of these people). Others say that Norris could have still kept going if he had just not driven back to the pits that aggressively, because if he had parked earlier, he wouldn’t have damaged his car and therefore could have kept going instead of DNF. Yeah, I don’t understand that either.
What we saw from Verstappen and Norris was a prime example of contenders for the win being locked in an incredible battle. It was on the edge and at one point it went over it, and that is just how it goes. Verstappen was found to be guilty of it and got the penalty that the rulebook attributes. End of story. Move on, and let’s hope that next race we can once again see the best drivers in the world duke it out for the win. Maybe if we do it a few times more, these people will remember what actual racing looks like.