How Hamilton and Mercedes shaped an extraordinary rookie

What's in a name? Often, especially in sport, it can grow to represent something beautiful. In football, even an old farmhouse can develop a romantic air. La Masia is the original home of Barcelona's youth academy, arguably the best in the world and certainly one of the most famous.

The name meant so much that it remained when, several years ago, the facility moved out of the 18th-century Catalan farmhouse that first gave its recruits a roof to sleep under in the 1970s.

No Formula 1 young driver programme has that same romance. However, being a proper F1 protege can offer something better, as Williams's 2019 signing George Russell can attest. Russell is one up on the would-be Lionel Messis of this world. He's spent the last year with a front-row seat to the Lewis Hamilton/Mercedes show, which is as educational as it is spectacular.

The engineers' room at the back of Mercedes' temporary paddock set-up might not have the same aura of an old farmstead, but how many Barcelona youth players can say they've spent dozens and dozens of days this year shadowing Messi as he drills into the details of his technique and how to get the best out of himself?

"I try to use my ears more than my mouth and follow from afar," says Russell. "Every driver is different and if one driver drives in a certain way he probably can't translate that into another driver if he says 'Do this, do that'.

"Every driver has to find their own way of driving, but the things I've learned is how he interacts with the team, the feedback. Lewis does offer bits of advice here and there, but like I say I use my ears more than my mouth."

Russell is in an extremely privileged position. He is graduating to F1 in 2019 as a back-to-back champion in GP3 and Formula 2, a man who has tested for Mercedes as well as its two customer teams, and who has spent most of 2019 dovetailing his F2 efforts with a Mercedes reserve driver role that put him in the heart of the team's efforts all season long.

That means Russell's 2018 was not restricted to his own efforts in F2 with ART. It branched out further than "just" a couple of thousand kilometres of testing, too. Whenever possible, Russell was in debriefs with Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Mercedes' crack engineering team.

"You are wired up to think you are the best. That's at odds from a personality point of view to look at someone else and say, 'I want to learn from him' or 'I admire him because he's better than me'" Paddy Lowe

He was in the garage during sessions, listening over the radio. He's leant on every resource possible during an intense, first-hand exposure to a team winning its fifth consecutive drivers/constructors' championship double and five-time world champion Hamilton's path to doing what only Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio have done before.

"There's a number of different perceptions of how Lewis's commitment is over the course of the year," says Russell. "He's got a number of different activities that he does, but what is clear to me is that he's an extremely talented driver but when he comes to the track he will work his arse off to maximise everything, pushing the team in such an amazing direction, really motivating everybody. He's worked really hard at it."

It is easy to criticise what opportunities F1 affords young drivers, but there are only 20 spots on the grand prix grid so chances are always going to be slim. What can be said in F1's favour is that the most promising proteges have an incredible amount of exposure to the absolute best the sport has to offer. There are very few who get that opportunity, and Russell's efforts convinced Mercedes to embed him more deeply this season.

Like any rising star in any sport, though, earning a chance is not enough - you need to make the most of it.

"Drivers can have a tendency to work in their own bubble and by nature they are super competitive," says ex-Mercedes man and Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe, who first worked with Russell when the youngster completed simulator work at Mercedes.

"You are wired up to think you are the best. That's the definition of the ultimate competitor, which is what you want in a Formula 1 driver. So, that's at odds from a personality point of view to look at someone else and say, 'I want to learn from him' or 'I admire him because he's better than me'.

"It's counter to your wiring. George had the privilege to work alongside someone who is undoubtedly well ahead of him at the moment and he is intelligent enough and humble enough to take advantage of that and appreciate it.

"For him to have seen exactly how Lewis works, what are the things he spends his time on, what is his approach, what is his attitude, will prove to be extremely valuable in the future - because once he's racing he won't be able to do that anymore."

The reason Russell is perfectly placed to benefit from this exposure to Mercedes and Hamilton is because he shares some of Hamilton's best attributes. As well as being very quick, Russell is immensely determined.

He's self-critical and intense, demanding the best not only from himself but those around him. And he puts in the work - which is something Hamilton does relentlessly, not just on-track but in the sheer breadth of non-racing commitments.

"I'm trying to excel in all areas at the moment," says Russell. "If you want to become world champion you cannot just rely on your speed on the track, or focus on that.

"There's so much more to F1, you're representing brands and have a number of sponsors who are helping you go racing. You need to provide something back for them so they help us develop the car further.

"It's a whole package and it's something Lewis is doing really well at the moment. What he's doing on-track is just as good as what he's doing off-track, everybody wants to see him and speak to him. He gives them a good time."

For evidence of how well Russell reflects those attributes, listen to Lowe.

"George is a very disciplined and well-organised, intelligent guy - as well as having the pace," he says. "That's the combination that makes him quite special. For a young guy he's very confident, he takes the initiative to try and shape his future and I think that's one of the reasons he's got to where he has. He clearly does that on the track as well, but he does it outside the car."

There's a lot riding on Russell's 2019 season. He's partnering Robert Kubica (above), a grand prix winner but unknown quantity given he is returning to F1 for the first time since '10 after the rally accident that almost severed his right forearm in early '11.

One could look at that as a situation in which Russell cannot win - he either beats a fallen hero, or is beaten by a driver not as good as he once was - but the reality is actually that Russell has the chance to assert himself immediately over a driver with a fine reputation, and learn from another person with significantly more F1 experience.

While Kubica has spent 2018 as Williams's development driver, and there is an obvious feel-good factor around the Pole's return, Russell has the chance to mould Williams in his own image given he is arriving on a long-term deal and offers an exciting future.

This is another area where his exposure to Mercedes will be valuable, because he now has much greater awareness of the bigger picture. It has not simply been valuable in improving himself as a driver.

The efforts of Hamilton and Mercedes make for simply incredible reading. Mercedes has won 74 of the 100 grands prix held since F1's V6 turbo-hybrid era began in 2014. Hamilton has won a staggering 51 of those.

Russell first started working with Mercedes in 2016, became a fully-fledged member of the young-driver programme last year and this season was its reserve driver, so the process of Mercedes and Hamilton setting new benchmarks in F1 was already well under way before he arrived. But it was only after he got to Mercedes that he saw why it is so damn good.

"Until you actually see it in the flesh you don't get a proper understanding that you come to a track, you've got all the engineers sat in a room here, you've got another x amount sat back in Brackley, all the designers, all the aero guys, the sim guys, vehicle dynamicists," he says.

"It just made me realise that it is such a complex sport and to try and get the most out of it, everything needs to be working as one.

"As I've grown older and I've gained more experience I've understood that there's always a right and a wrong way of getting your point across" George Russell

"It taught me that you can't just rely on your speed, you've got to try and be that team leader, to build everything together, to get everybody developing in the right direction. A driver and a car are not two separate things.

"A lot of people would say you put any driver in a Mercedes and they will win. That's true for probably one or two races but the reason that they are continuously right there at the front is because they've got two really good drivers, pushing the team in the right direction to keep on developing forward."

Russell's process of learning what Williams has to offer and what he can do to improve, to push it in the right direction, to help lift it from its 2018 slump, started two months ago.

For the final three grands prix of 2018 he swapped his cushy vantage point of the best team on the grid to shadow Williams. Stones were immediately being turned over in the pursuit of a better way to prepare himself for his F1 debut next year.

"As I've grown older and I've gained more experience I've understood that there's always a right and a wrong way of getting your point across, whether it's for something positive or something negative," says Russell.

"How you give out that information to the team, depending on the specific words you use or even your tone of voice, can have a huge difference.

"If I was to say something you might interpret it differently to how the guy next to you interprets it. If you work with so many people you have to also make sure of the simple stuff, that your words are clear, that the point you are getting across is exactly the point that is clear to everybody.

"It's a long winter break. It gives us a great opportunity and plenty of time to spend loads of days at the factory and just to get to know everybody. The main thing is building relationships with the engineers so there are no unknowns and that we're comfortable to the point we can express our feelings with one other."

Inspired by Hamilton and Mercedes, Russell's no ordinary rookie. His arrival will have already set a fire up the backside of everybody at Williams, which is ready to give Russell everything he needs to do what he does best: learn as much as he can from the best people he has access to, and translate that knowledge into extraordinary results on-track.