His seven-time world champion team-mate is heading off to pastures new, so life is looking good for George Russell, right? Things might not be that simple…
ALEX KALINAUCKAS
“George has the potential to be the next lead driver in the team.” How’s that for a vote of confidence from your boss? Toto Wolff, in the aftermath of Lewis Hamilton’s impeding defection from Mercedes to Ferrari being announced, left Formula 1 followers in no doubt what he thought about the standing of the other racer in his current line-up, George Russell.
The 26-year-old is now two seasons into works life at the team that signed him as a junior back in 2017. He’s registered an F1 pole position and, critically, is a grand prix winner thanks to his triumph in 2022’s Sao Paulo race. That victory sets him apart from Lando Norris and Alex Albon – his contemporaries in the class of 2019 F1 rookies. It also means he stands as Mercedes’ most recent race winner, with Hamilton’s drought stretching back to late 2021.
Russell’s early efforts at the Brackley-based team were quickly recognised. His 2022 successes and then impressive showings early in 2023 meant it had long been decided that the contract extension for 2025 it was announced he’d earned at last September’s Monza round was a formality.
Russell has been succeeding at one of only two F1 superteams that can boast a proven track record of title success in the last decade and a half. Yet soon, Hamilton will leave for the one that has so far failed to crack that hegemony – despite promising starts in 2017, 2018 and 2022. But the seven-time world champ’s decision to head to Ferrari actually makes Russell’s coming new season harder, in one important way. This is because of how his 2023 campaign went and how it’s viewed by those outside Merc.
Simply put, Russell’s brilliant start to last year – where he outshone Hamilton in qualifying, led brilliantly before the first red flag and his engine issue in Australia, plus being waved by his team-mate in Miami – is forgotten in those mistakes and crashes in Canada, Singapore and Las Vegas. At least Russell’s campaign ended on a fine moment in Abu Dhabi, where he secured a podium – his second of the year – while battling an illness picked up in F1’s mammoth transfer from Las Vegas to the Middle East.
Russell had come into that race dwelling on being “disappointed with myself in that there’s been a few on my shoulders” in squandered podium chances. He was left targeting
