FIA Killed George Russell’s Dream of Collecting F1 Cars

George Russell was displeased with the fact that FIA's cost-cap disallowed him from legally owning a Formula 1 car.

FIA Killed George Russell’s Dream of Collecting F1 Cars

George Russell (via F1)

George Russell is a true car lover and wants to keep expanding his impressive garage. Though Russell owns flashy cars from multiple brands, he still isn’t able to park his F1 challenger from a particular season in his garage. Iconic F1 challengers are being auctioned off for millions of dollars, while cars from the latest generations are yet to be auctioned off.

Following FIA’s cost-cap introduction in Formula 1, teams now produce much fewer chassis as compared to before, just to make it under the cost limit. Meanwhile, many old F1 cars were being sold, such as Michael Schumacher‘s first race-winning Benetton, and Ayrton Senna‘s McLaren from the 1991 Brazilian GP.

Speaking on not having an F1 challenger in his garage, George Russell opened up and revealed the reason behind it. The Briton pointed out that he would have loved to collect Formula 1 cars, but he couldn’t because of teams producing fewer cars all around. Following the budget ceiling introduced, Mercedes only produced about four monocoque chassis for the entire year.

George Russell recalled that the teams two decades ago could undergo unlimited testing of their cars, and thus produced many more chassis. Russell pointed out that each team built around 15 to 20 cars throughout the year, which allowed them to be auctioned off later for millions of dollars. For now, the Silver Arrow is content with owning multiple Mercedes cars from both the modern and vintage eras, except for F1 challengers.

I would love to collect my own Formula 1 cars, but because of the budget ceiling, we still only produce three or four monocoques a year. Twenty years ago, when teams had unlimited testing, each team built 15 to 20 chassis.

George Russell told Auto Motor und Sport.

George Russell plans on ‘talking to FIA’ about producing more monocoque chassis for teams

Despite Formula 1’s recent budget limitations, George Russell would like for teams to produce more chassis throughout the year solely for purposes of being sold later. Russell revealed that teams already made enough copies of all other parts in a Formula 1 challenger. The Briton highlighted that each driver had five engines for himself over a year, which they could legally change in their car.

Toto Wolff and George Russell (via IMAGO)
Toto Wolff and George Russell (via IMAGO)

This meant that Mercedes produced over sixty different engines as part of their collaboration with other teams and drivers on the grid as well. As such, this proved that lack of money wasn’t a factor limiting teams from producing extra chassis. Despite having multiple other parts of an F1 car, Russell noted that the monocoque chassis was just a handful. As such, the Silver Arrow aimed to have a conversation with the FIA about this and potentially park an F1 challenger in his garage in the near future.

I would like to see a way for the teams to produce some monocoques outside the budget ceiling. We have enough copies of all sorts of other parts.Each driver has five engines a year. Mercedes, I believe, produces about sixty a year. There are also enough front wings and floors. We have at least ten sets of all the other parts available. But we only have three or four monocoques. Maybe I should talk to the FIA about that.

George Russell noted.

Formula 1 is certainly a sport for the rich, and limiting the amount of chassis being produced because of money being a factor sounds counterintuitive. Though a cost cap enhances transparency and produces better racing on track, teams must be allowed to make extra copies of the car for those who want to look at the aerodynamic beasts parked in their garage.

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