George Russell isn’t here for the pearl-clutching over Max Verstappen’s extracurriculars.
As the paddock rolled into Singapore, the Mercedes driver brushed off suggestions that Verstappen’s outing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife — where the four-time World Champion hopped into a GT3 Ferrari and promptly won a four-hour race — was an unnecessary gamble.
“You have to do what you enjoy in life,” Russell said, pointing out that risk isn’t exclusive to racetracks with hedges and history. “There’s a risk in everything. We can slip on the paddle court and break a leg, or fall down the stairs in the morning. Obviously rally is probably a higher risk than racing a GT3 car on a racetrack, but ultimately, we all have to do what we enjoy. You can’t wrap yourself in bubble wrap.”
It’s the classic F1 tension playing out in real time: the instinct to protect drivers versus the reality that these are racers who, given a spare weekend, will look for a steering wheel to hold. Verstappen’s side trips have long been part of his rhythm, and this one — a debut victory around the Nordschleife, the most myth-soaked ribbon of tarmac in the sport — only turned up the volume.
The specter of Robert Kubica’s 2011 rally crash was raised in the media briefing, as it always is when drivers wander outside F1’s carefully managed orbit. But there was little appetite among Verstappen’s peers to police one of their own.
Lando Norris, seated alongside Russell, sounded more amused than alarmed. “It’s cool. It’s nice he can go and do what he wants,” Norris said. “I think after you win four World Championships, you have a bit more right to just go and choose what you want to do.”
He went further, tipping the cap once again to Verstappen’s across-the-board pace. “I don’t know how much it adds to your greatness or not, but the fact he can go into any series and be probably the best shows how good he is. I’ve said it many times: he’s born to be and will forever be one of the best ever, if not the best, in Formula 1.”
Norris admitted he’d love to sample the Nordschleife himself “at one point,” then let slip a more human note about his own future. “I still see a time when I’ll just want to leave Formula 1 and go do other things, go play golf and have some fun elsewhere,” he said with a grin. Not tomorrow, but the thought is there — and it underlines the theme of the day: drivers as people, not just assets.
Esteban Ocon added a gamer-to-reality twist. “I’ve been racing this track on Gran Turismo for years and years,” he laughed, before noting he’d done development running on the Nordschleife last year to learn the place for real. Watching Verstappen win, he said, was “incredible,” even if the calendar makes those detours tough. “We have a very busy schedule. He’s fighting for a World Championship potentially, and he’s won already four, which helps in his decision of going or not. But if I was in his position, I would probably do the same.”
Strip away the noise and the consensus is clear. The current grid grew up idolizing drivers who bounced between categories, who used different disciplines to sharpen their craft and feed the addiction. Insurance clauses and modern F1’s relentless agenda make that trickier now, but the instinct hasn’t gone away — and nor has the respect among rivals for someone who keeps winning, no matter the badge on the nose.
Russell’s take was the most pragmatic of the bunch. He didn’t romanticize it. He just framed it as adulthood. There are smarter and dumber risks; rallying sits higher on the danger scale than a GT3 race ringed by proper run-off. But at some point, telling a four-time champion not to drive a racing car becomes as absurd as telling him not to take the stairs.
Verstappen returns to F1 duty under the lights this weekend with the usual expectations strapped to his shoulders. The debate around his Nordschleife victory will fade, replaced by the next lap, the next quali run, the next tire whisper. But the subtext lingers: in a sport built on managing risk, the drivers themselves are voting, quietly and unanimously, for a little freedom to be racers. And that, as Russell suggests, is probably the safest way to keep them happy.
