{"id":927204,"date":"2026-10-10T01:44:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T01:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/927204\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T01:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T01:44:20","slug":"mark-hughes-russells-f1-recovery-drive-could-run-into-an-alonso-sized-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/927204\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Hughes: Russell&#8217;s F1 recovery drive could run into an Alonso-sized problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/drivers\/george-russell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Russell<\/a> goes into the <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/circuits\/marina-bay\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Singapore<\/a> weekend with a horrible confluence of circumstances. Forced by his PU failure in <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/circuits\/sepang\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sepang<\/a> to take an engine from outside the pool, he will therefore be starting at or near the back in Singapore, a circuit where overtaking is immensely difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that, but because the <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/teams\/mercedes-benz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/articles\/single-seaters\/f1\/aduo-how-f1-will-unlock-engine-upgrades-so-strugglers-can-catch-up\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ADUO<\/a>-updated PU is not available yet, the fresh motor he\u2019s taking here is of the current \u2013 soon to be outmoded \u2013 spec. So if he wants to get the benefit of the ADUO motor from whenever it\u2019s available (probably from the very next race, at Austin), he\u2019s in for another grid penalty too.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s just George\u2019s lot. Nothing much he can do about it, other than enjoy the performance of a competitive car around a track at which he has historically shone and see where that takes him. There\u2019s an almost zero chance of him emulating the trick of team-mate <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/drivers\/andrea-kimi-antonelli\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kimi Antonelli<\/a> at <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/circuits\/monza\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Monza<\/a> in winning from the back, but a fresh-engined <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/teams\/mercedes-benz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes<\/a> should have the performance to get through the lower part of the field relatively quickly.<\/p>\n<p>A lap time advantage of 1.5sec is reckoned to be what you need here to overtake, which should get you past the Cadillacs, <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/teams\/williams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Williams<\/a> and <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/teams\/haas-formula-1-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Haas<\/a> cars without too much drama. It gets more difficult after that and further progress will probably have to be done on strategy and tyre age offsets.<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"1012\" width=\"1799\" alt=\"Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin\" class=\"\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2298505078.jpg.webp\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-image-text\">Alonso had his best race of the season at Sepang<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-description\">\n                        Aston Martin\n                    <\/p>\n<p>Normally, the <a class=\"msm-autolink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/database\/teams\/aston-martin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aston Martin<\/a> would be included in those cars which would be easy passes, but on the evidence of Sepang that may no longer be the case. You may recall that its first upgrade of the year was in Hungary and it found the car something in excess of 1.5sec per lap, allowing Alonso through to Q2 for the first time. But since then until Sepang last weekend, that progress wasn\u2019t so obvious and it was generally forgotten about. But it shouldn\u2019t have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell goes into the Singapore weekend with a horrible confluence of circumstances. Forced by his PU failure&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[318513,49,48,578,576,577,3024,82],"class_list":["post-927204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-2026-singapore-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}