Karun Chandhok says George Russell has the same weakness as Oscar Piastri in F1 title race

Photo by Mark Sutton - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images

Karun Chandhok believes George Russell is facing similar issues to those Oscar Piastri dealt with last year, particularly on low-grip circuits.

Piastri was up by 34 points with 10 races left in the season but ended up trailing his teammate Lando Norris by 13 points when it was all said and done.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella didn’t put it down to pressure. Instead, he pointed to a more technical reason, explaining that Piastri struggled to drive naturally on slicker tracks like Azerbaijan, Mexico, and Brazil.

Russell draws parallels with Piastri after struggles in Miami

Russell labelled the Miami Grand Prix as one of his weaker venues, and after qualifying four-tenths behind pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli, he told Chandhok on Sky Sports that the car felt like it was on extremely worn tyres.

“I’m quite a smooth, precise driver and that’s always been my style,” he said. “On these tracks, you’ve got to be happy with the car sliding. I like the car on the edge, but this is like you’ve got a set of 200-lap-old tyres on the car, and it’s just sliding, oversteering, understeering.

“That’s the same for everybody. It’s so hot, tyre pressures are high, the grip’s really low, so it doesn’t actually feel that pleasant, whereas you go to tracks like Saudi and the grip’s super high, it feels mega to drive and that’s where I [excel].”

The Sky Sports pundit saw similarities between Russell’s comments and what Piastri experienced during his title battle with Lando Norris.

“It sounds like Oscar and Lando,” Chandhok said. “This is what Oscar was saying: he’s super smooth and struggles at low-grip tracks. At least you know where [the weakness] is.”

Russell has had some legitimate reasons for dropping points in China and Japan earlier this season. But in Miami there was no such excuse – this time he was outperformed without any clear mitigating factors.