George Russell has labelled Ferrari as “selfish” after the Mercedes driver claimed Lewis Hamilton's team have blocked a change to the F1 start procedure.
Russell led a dominant Mercedes one-two finish at the first race of the 2026 F1 season in Melbourne, as a new era of the sport started to a mixed verdict from drivers and fans alike.
One such issue were the race starts, an area in which Ferrari thrived in, with Charles Leclerc leapfrogging from fourth to first at turn one and Hamilton also climbing three places.
Yet some runners struggled to start smoothly, given the specifics of the turbo lag and energy management on the formation lap, and Russell believes Ferrari have refuted a potential alteration, as a result of their current supremacy at lights out.
"Unfortunately, sometimes when you're trying to make changes for the good of the sport, if a team has a competitive edge - like Ferrari at the moment with the race starts - they wouldn't wish to see anything changing," Russell told Sky Sports F1.
"I think half the grid got caught out by a quirk in the rules for the race start in Melbourne. We now know that, but because there was some resistance from some teams to change, we're just going to have to work around it."
Russell then labelled the Scuderia “selfish” at a written media session in Shanghai, adding: "The FIA was looking to potentially adjust that (the start procedure), but as you can imagine some teams who were making good starts didn't want it, which I think is just a little bit silly. I'm not overly concerned, but it's definitely a challenge.
“I think they [the FIA] want to [make a change] but they need a super majority from the teams, which they don't have. So, you can probably guess which team is against that.
"I don't think their gain is coming from this issue. Now all the teams know the problem, we'll just drive around it. But it's just creating a bit of unnecessary complications to something that doesn't really need to be there. Half the grid messed up in Melbourne. We'll adjust. We know what we need to be wary of now.
"The FIA did just want to make our life easier and just remove this harvest limit, but, as often [happens], people have selfish views and they want to do what's best for themselves. And that's part of Formula 1 and part of the challenge of Formula 1. We'll deal with it and I think the starts here will be much better."
Russell went on to explain the intricacies of the race start procedure, with a number of cars struggling off the start line at Albert Park. Liam Lawson, in particular, stalled and was fortunate to be hit from behind by the unsighted Franco Colapinto.
"I think there was an error that caught a lot of teams out, which was the harvest limit on the formation lap,” Russell said.
"So, a very quirky rule… every lap there's a harvest limit. The drivers who started in the first half of the grid, who were beyond the timing line, they were already within that lap. So when you did your formation-lap start, you're spending your battery and you're charging your battery, which goes towards your harvest limit.
“The drivers at the back, when they did their formation lap start, they then launch away, they cross the start-finish line and then it resets because they're effectively on the next lap.
"So, from what we did in the practice starts, we did the launch before this line, and it reset. And on the race start, starting from pole, I went on the throttle, I charged the battery, but it took like 50 per cent of my harvest limit of that lap, so when I got halfway around the track, I could no longer charge the battery, I had no power to do proper burnouts."
Russell and Mercedes are again the favourites this weekend in Shanghai, which hosts the first of six sprint weekends this season.
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