I'm afraid I can see where George's story is going... and it's not gonna be pretty.
TLDR: the issues in George's car will not be solved, and they will repeatedly be converted into his own shortcomings because Mercedes wants to cover up their incompetence and it plays perfectly into TW's prodigy project. Plus some other ramblings.
The mysterious shape-shifting issues and their obscure solutions
So, after George had seemingly found his mojo again and handily outperformed Atoneli (what a surprise!), a mysterious straight line speed deficit appeared. That's as "nothing the driver can do about it" as it can get, so you're welcome to follow the sabotage route here; we sure have enough evidence to justify it. But that's not what I want to discuss, so we move on.
The difference between the two cars got so blatant even mainstream F1 media started to question Mercedes about it. So Mercedes launched a (always dreadful) reparation tour, with pictures of the drivers together, stories of friendship and some other bullshit. They also claimed they finally found the issue and fixed it. Many GR fans got cautiously optimistic; however, it did not last long.
First off, they didn't fix shit, as we're seeing this very weekend. To be honest, they wouldn't have even if they were actively trying to — which I'm not convinced they are — because this is the team that spent the last few years weekly having issues and saying something along the lines of "we need to analyze and understand what happened". They have yet to finish analyzing and understanding any of those. But they need to maintain the image of a top Formula 1 team; they can't have people highlighting their shortcomings and digging around their failures.
Second, and most damning of all: while Mercedes Official says there have been problems in his car and they are working hard to solve them, yada yada, some people claim they spoke to sources inside the Mercedes garage who confirmed there is no issue at all and George is just making a fuss trying to blame his underperformance on the car. On the mainstream F1 media, the "it's all his driving style, he can't adapt to these cars" is on full swing again. Quotes like Lando's gain all the space on social media. Additionally, because George has been one of the few drivers who didn't trash the new regulations, many fans take his issues — which are directly related to these new PUs — as karma.
Now take a look at Mercedes' statements again with these views in mind. At the beginning of the weekend, they reported that "an element deep in the code" of George's PU was the mysterious problem. Resta also said "we're really thankful to George for having challenged us and highlighted an opportunity where we needed to focus. He has been really good at understanding and highlighting things to us. We have finally been able to identify the solution and put a fix in place for this race". Very, very easy to translate this into "we made up some issue somewhere no one can look and pretended to fix it to appease Georgie boy".
I think we can expect more reporting on these lines to come up during the break: "analysis" that "prove" there is nothing wrong in George's car and it's all him failing to extract the best from these regulations. That among other shading.
We can expect something else from the break as well...
How to fake a prodigy
I believe it's quite clear by now that Torger and some other folks at Mercedes F1 have something big riding on Antoneli's success. Their egos, for sure, probably a lot of money too, and I suspect some positions in the team as well.
They rushed the guy into F1 believing from his early achievements that they have found a "new Verstapen". He underwhelmed in F2, but what really proved he was no prodigy was his performance in his rookie season: no "generational talent" takes a 21-3 beating. He might develop into a great driver in the future (much like George, Oscar and Lando, to name a few), but a prodigy he is not. True prodigies go toe-to-toe with world champions. And don't get me started on the logic of George's a bum, therefore taking such a beating from him means Antoneli is the second coming of Senna.
But Torger got an unique chance for a do-over with the regulation change, aided by a string of bad luck for George. Conservatively speaking, we can assume Japan and Canada were almost certainly Russell wins, which would mean the two Mercedes were alternating on top for the first six races. However, because things went south for George on those two, Antoneli got five wins in a row. Hence, the prodigy project could restart in full gear. They can claim their baby boy has the best understanding of the regs, is the most adaptable, the most consistent, the most anything. Since these regulations have literally all of the best drivers on the grid struggling with something or other, Antoneli has no one to challenge him.
I find it very suspicious how much effort all of F1 media has been putting into faking this particular prodigy, as I have stated in another post. I don't understand the reasons for it, but that's what's happening: they twist and turn and bend and stretch every piece of information to fit this narrative. Moreover, Torger has a history of stupid quotes aimed at anyone and everyone, but recently they're being consistently directed at discrediting George. Whenever asked about anything regarding his senior driver, Wolf releases one or more of the four Ds: Downplay, Dismiss, Deny, be a Dick. It's been very effective, especially because people, for unknown reasons, believe TW is some kind of racing god and knows what he's talking about.
My speculation is that Wolf & Co. get a cut of Antoneli's earnings, regardless of Mercedes. This would explain why they were happy to alude to a future Ferrari move. Drivers for the red team don't even need to win anything to be marketable, as evidenced by Charles (this is no shade to him, just a fact). Imagine being Italian on top of that. But Ferrari seems to have shut the door on their faces: they extended Sharl despite having two more years with him still under contract; and they appear to be following Lewis's leadership now, given his much more positive attitude this year. Suddenly, that path doesn't seem as clear anymore.
Mercedes Extended also doesn't seem too keen on the wonderkid. They barely use him for the brand's promotions. Neither do most of the sponsors, despite him being the championship leader for several months now. What we see is him all over the team's social media and (suspiciously) F1's marketing.
The association they love the most — other than with Senna, of course — is with Verstapen. Antoneli clings to him, talks about him frequently, and now Wolf brings up having both of them on his team. This is the other thing I think we can expect during the break: a lot of Verstapen linked to Mercedes. In fact, I'll be shocked if Antoneli isn't found hanging out on Max's yacht at some point this summer.
At this stage, however, it's quite certain Max to Mercedes is not going to happen, and not only because the board would hardly agree to that with all of it's caveats. It's also because that would be the fastest way to crumble the prodigy facade they are building. Sure, Antoneli beating Verstapen would cement his status. But, firstly, it wouldn't happen unless there are some shenanigans. Need I remind you Antoneli has only beaten 0-time-world-champion George Russell a couple of times without external factors taking his teammate out of the way? And secondly, can you imagine the mayhem if Max's car had 1/10th of the issues George's had while his teammate pulls away scot-free?
This Verstapen+Antoneli fantasy is coming from the unhinged parts of the fandom, the ones who believe one would be lucky to smell Verstapen's farts. In their minds, Antoneli would be ecstatic to play second-fiddle and, before the pseudo-prodigy can beat their goat a single time, Max would retire from F1, leaving the path open for his disciple. There's so much wrong with this idea, I'm not even gonna go there. The fact is the Verstapen camp requires all of the resources and limelight to be on him. And if they are on him, there is no wonderkid, cause faking this prodigy also requires all of the resources and limelight. What Wolf truly wants, I think, is to replace George with a true nº 2, who wouldn't be able to challenge Antoneli even if they wanted to.
Maybe all of this crippling of George we've been seeing since China is designed to make him cave into becoming this ideal nº 2. Or maybe they want him to quit, because his contract is way more secure than we imagine. Or maybe they just don't care at all whatever happens to him because they have their favorite driver to care for.
George's not helping his own case either
I don't think George's own words have been helping him much in this situation. For starters, he's the one who spoke a bunch of times about his driving style. That he supposedly used the same for 20 years, that it doesn't suit the regs as well as his teammate's, so on and so forth. It's perfectly reasonable that he's having some issues getting on top of all of the new elements these regs brought along, which means he can't extract the most from the car every time and hasn't been able to find the consistency he's renown for. But what the heck is he on about when he claims he drove the same way since forever, when we have seen him adapt incredibly quickly to different cars, regulations and circumstances? Is the "driving style" he speaks of the same thing most people are thinking of when they use this expression? I truly appreciate how sincere and detailed he is in his answers, but this type of statement ends up being ammunition for his haters.
George's fervent defense of his team and especially of Torger doesn't play in his favor either. It makes him look like a fool and leaves people confused whether they should or should not give credence to suspicions of favoritism. I get it, he can't say anything negative; but mere silence would already be enough.
And I acknowledge there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes we know nothing about, and that these people know each other much better than we know any of them. So it's plausible that the team and Wolf have been supportive and hardworking and whatnot. However, no matter what they do in private, what they've been showing in public is ugly as hell. The way Torger throws George under the bus repeatedly, the way Mercedes denies issues only to admit to them days later when nobody's paying attention anymore... this stuff is not ok. If nothing else, Mercedes and Wolf should to get their public act together.
A bit of a diversion, but I also believe that, by showing too little of himself, George created a blank canvas others can project anything they want, and his haters use it plenty — as does F1 media. I don't mean he needs to overexpose himself; in fact, I quite like that he's so private and often disappears from the face of the Earth on no-race times. Something in the lines of Albono's PR, though, would be more than enough. However, to me, it seems George's allowed himself to blend too much into the Mercedes corporate brand and doesn't show any of his personality like we used to see when he was at Williams. We, fans, know there's more to him because we dig in and pay attention, but what the mainstream fans see is only the occasional whiny radio or some misquote that passed through a ragebait filter. His characteristics are so faint on the general public's mind, others can claim anything about him and be received with little to no questioning. Plus, the little that is know about him is being gradually taken away by Antoneli's camp, as I discussed in another post.
I don't believe George's a fool at all, but at the same time I don't understand what he's doing. Does he truly believe in this mess of a team? All F1 teams are somewhat messy, so maybe this isn't as bad as we think? Does he seriously trust Torger despite all the red flags? Is there something there that we are not seeing? George's a multimillionaire, so why doesn't he pay someone to take care of his image and help him create a more interesting narrative? Is all of this tied to his contract with Mercedes? Is he unable to make any moves? Is he working on this stuff behind the scenes?
I don't have the answers to any of these questions. All I know is that I'm not enjoying watching this play out.
