George Russell: Getting Pirelli tyres to work is "like completing a Rubick's cube"

George Russell has criticised Pirelli, stating that getting their tyres in the optimum temperature window is like "solving a Rubik's cube." Many teams struggled to get the compounds to work in their favour with Williams and Haas struggling the most.  

"I now have a year of experience of understanding these tyres, and what it takes to get them working well. That's what I want to optimize," Russell said to GPToday.net.  

"I know when I can get them to work well, I can do the job. But getting them to work well is like trying to complete a Rubick's cube."

Russell is used to the Pirelli tyres having raced in Formula 2 with the rubber but Formula 1 is completely different. 

"It helped a little bit, but F1 is a completely different ball-game," he said of gaining experience with Pirelli in F2.

"It's tricky, not just for me but for every driver. The general characteristics of the Pirelli tyres have been the same for the last ten years. 

"They change here or there but there's nothing drastically changing with them. They might be harder or softer, or harder or easier to warm up, but there's never anything drastic."

Formula 1 had the option to use a new 2020 rubber but the teams have decided to stick with the 2019 compounds, suggesting that the problem isn't as bad as some make out.