“Pay Him!”: Eddie Jordan Urges Toto Wolff to Shell out the Bucks Owed to George Russell

Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan has suggested Mercedes boss Toto Wolff pay George Russell his dues to keep the 26-year-old happy. Jordan’s remarks come after Russell faced the agony of being disqualified from the recently concluded Belgian GP due to his car being deemed underweight by the FIA.

Since Russell drove a brilliant race at Spa, David Coulthard asked Jordan on the most recent episode of the Formula for Success podcast if the Irishman would pay his driver extra for seeing a potential race win snatched from them for no fault of their own or only if the final result stood. In reply, the Irishman said,

“There is no real right way and there is no real wrong way on this one. It comes down to compassion and it comes down to the relationship with the driver and the team. And just generally, I know Toto [Wolff]. Toto is not a poor man and he’s very astute and very careful. He sees in George a world champion going forward“.

Jordan then told Coulthard that Wolff should “pay him the money” as Russell drove a faultless race from his side. Coulthard asked Jordan this question as drivers often receive bonuses for race wins. However, in the case of Russell, he did not win the race because the FIA disqualified his car.

Since Jordan believes that Russell was not exactly at fault, he hopes Wolff would pay the 26-year-old his dues. Even former F1 team principal Guenther Steiner explained how it was the Mercedes strategists and the engineers that were at fault for their failure to help Russell win the Belgian GP.

Steiner blames George Russell’s race engineer for the disqualification

Steiner appeared on the most recent episode of The Red Flags podcast, where the interviewer asked him to reveal the individual in a team who is often responsible for ensuring that the cars meet the minimum weight requirements. In reply, the Italian-American said,

“The race engineer, normally, is doing that [monitoring the data related to the weight of the car] and they just…I don’t know if they missed something or they really did not think they were going to do a one-stop“.

Since Russell opted for the unconventional one-stop in Spa, his car lost more tread because of the increased tire degradation and as a result of the same, there was a greater loss in weight as well.

Moreover, since drivers directly enter Parc Ferme after the race in Spa and do not do the cool-down lap, they are unable to make their car gain some weight by picking up discarded rubber and marbles.