F1 pundit's theory on why George Russell gets away with driver errors like the one against Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona

F1 pundit Peter Windsor feels that George Russell easily got away with his collision with his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in the qualifying session of the 2023 F1 Spanish GP.

The young British driver had some misunderstandings and accidentally forced Hamilton off the track in the Q2 session. Although it was obviously not intentional, it was dangerous enough for Russell to get a penalty. However, he was not penalized by the stewards.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Peter Windsor initially pressed on how dangerous the move was by George Russell and how he should have gotten a hefty penalty for it.

"I'm absolutely staggered that George did not get a much, much stiffer penalty for that. What he did was so much worse than all the other stuff that we talk about, for which you get penalties in Formula 1. It's inexcusable, I think, to be pulling out behind another car into the path of a third car which is going much quicker," Windsor said.

Later on, the F1 pundit speculated that the reason why George Russell did not get a penalty was that he was now in a senior position in the GDPA and is generally in the stewards' and the FIA's good books.

Windsor also spoke about Yuki Tsunoda's penalty for forcing Zhou Guanyu out of the track and opined that the penalty was not harsh. However, the same could have been given to the Mercedes driver as well.

"I was thinking, actually, why wasn't he penalized more? It was not very serious. I think possibly it's because he has, you know, quite a senior position in the GPDA, and he is very well thought of, as you say," Windsor added.

"You know, Yuki got penalized fairly appropriately, probably, but I think that's why George does get away with it, because he has got this senior position now and they [stewards] think, 'Well, you know, he would not do it intentionally'. But that is not the point. Nobody does it intentionally," he continued.

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George Russell feels porpoising could make a comeback on certain upcoming tracks

George Russell feels that the Mercedes W14 could once again start to porpoise on some of the upcoming tracks, like Silverstone and Suzuka.

"You'll probably see the same issues when you get behind something tracks like Silverstone and Suzuka. Probably Canada won't be an issue because it's just low-speed corners, and the straight-line bouncing [has] seemingly disappeared," he told the media.

Porpoising is a phenomenon when a car bounces on its suspension while the wheels stay on the ground, especially on bouncy tracks. It's uncomfortable for drivers, bad for their health, and also takes quite a toll on the engineers who have to get the setup right.

Mercedes suffered from porpoising a lot in the 2022 F1 season, and the team will hope the phenomenon doesn't occur again.