Hey, sorry to bring podcast talk to you, but a point was brought up regarding George and the monaco penalty disaster, where they thought George being George he over-communicates on the radio and therefore causes confusion with talking over pitwall, but then wondering if the constant checking is really because he doesn't trust his own team and feels like they're not on top of his race and he has to keep nudging them to make sure they're actually paying attention, especially with the rescent merc flubs with him...Thoughts?
I’ve never loved the term “over communicates” even in a sport with an element of radio secrecy. I mean you’re alone in a carbon fibre arrow going 200 miles an hour, I think if your only access to communication was a radio, and choices get made in milliseconds, you’re going to want to ensure you get things right.
Merc has a sort of historic habit of encouraging George to call his own strategy. He’s the man in the car, he does know the tire best, and of many of the drivers I’ve watched over the years George really does have an uncanny ability to plan strategy mid drive. While he’s fucked up once or twice, it’s also given him wins before.
I don’t want to go so far as to say George doesn’t trust Mercedes, but there’s been a couple times over the last year or two where they’ve been deeply slow on a choice, and THAT frustrates him. That frustration is fair for most drivers- you’re trying to manage a million things and keep the car out of the wall, whatever choice they decide on will mean a lot of changes for you, and it needs to happen as fast as possible.
I think this is a case of the outcome determining our view of the incident. There’s been times he’s been overly demanding and forceful, and it paid off (Zandvoort 22, Spa24), there’s also been times he’s gotten himself worked up and being told to shut up was fair because his anger wasn’t letting him focus (France 2022). If they’d pulled the pit stop off right, we wouldn’t be questioning if George was over communicating.
But because it all went wrong, every pundit in the world is pointing fingers on who to blame. While George was pressing hard on them while they were likely balancing a lot- they did fuck it up and he was right. Merc should have been focused on him- while I understand that it’s second nature for a team to focus on their leading driver- Kimi had a pit stop gap and was far safer. George’s pit was more complicated, and was vital to them gaining places, given his penalty they should have been thinking about how to reduce that, Marcus and strategy should have been planning to pit him the second they saw a safety car because that reduces how much he loses when the pack gets backed up- and if they’d had tires out there for him, why weren’t they prepared to serve the penalty.
George may have come in earlier than they were exactly ready for, but the question isn’t why’d he do that, it’s why weren’t they bringing him in that early? It’s poor strategic prioritising and even POORER communication and following public relations
