Why George Russell still has a point to prove

George Russell drove in Formula 1 last year. This year, he needs to race. Many will have registered Russell's ungainly Williams only when it was being lapped, or perhaps when he put in the occasional cameo, for example almost reaching Q2 in Hungary.

But the FW42 was so bad that he was mostly nailed to the back row with nobody to fight except team-mate Robert Kubica, whom he outpaced comprehensively.

Yet Russell has come out of a pointless season with his burgeoning reputation enhanced, despite it being difficult to spot the difference between a driver with prodigious potential in a tail-end machine and a mediocre one, given the results look very similar.

Russell has shown enough to suggest this might be one of those rare occasions a star of the future excels in the shadowy fringes of F1. Fernando Alonso's 2001 rookie season with Minardi is a valid comparison given he too went pointless but impressed those paying attention, and was on a pathway to a drive with a Renault team that would become a race-winning force once he joined.

Russell is Mercedes-affiliated, and is on a journey that might lead to a Silver Arrows seat. That those beyond Mercedes and Williams also hold him in high regard shows there is more to Russell than the unavoidably poor results suggest.

"It's reassuring that there are people outside of Williams who are noticing what I'm doing," says Russell.

"I believe I've done a good job, but I don't believe I've done a perfect or excellent job and still believe I can improve. I've had some really strong performances but I'll become a more complete driver in 2020 and I'm really looking forward to that, not purely because I believe the car will be much stronger but just to see what I can achieve.

"I'm learning how to extract more out of the machine and that's why I'm excited, to see if I can achieve the levels that I believe I'm capable of."

Russell has a little of the Alain Prost about him. He's eloquent, intelligent and drives in an economical way that works with the car rather than against it.

He set out his stall to approach his rookie season professionally and to do everything he could to help raise Williams from the depths. There was no evidence of him wallowing in self-pity, which some more entitled operators might have done.

When Russell did get past, he usually dropped Kubica at a startling rate - particularly as Russell's ability to manage the tyres improved over the second half of the season

That the car remained painfully slow is not down to any failure on Russell's part and, after using the four early-season flyaways to settle in, he promptly established himself as the focal point for the squad given his pace - and Kubica becoming somewhat truculent on the other side of the garage.

Those in the team working with the drivers don't get behind 'their' driver because management tells them to, they do so because they enjoy working with them and see a little magic in the cockpit. It's a formidable barometer of a driver's contribution, and George's enthusiasm proved a galvanising force.

He's not the finished article, how could he be at 21? But the mention of him in the same breath as Prost is not fatuous. Witness Russell's reaction to qualifying 16th in Hungary: rather than reveling in his pace he talked in depth about a breakthrough in tyre understanding.

The lack of any real yardstick to compare him against - steamrollering any team-mate is impressive but Kubica struggled - and the absence of many razor-edge turning points, when excelling might make the difference between success and failure, is troubling.

The only time there was a point on offer in the German Grand Prix, it was Kubica's. That was one of only two races where both finished and in which Kubica was ahead, the result of repeated safety cars, Russell not being allowed to pit for slicks when he wanted to and then making a mistake that let his team-mate past.

Errors in races were relatively rare, although they did usually happen in battle with Kubica - wiping out a marker bollard at Paul Ricard, and striking his team-mate a glancing blow after a botched overtaking attempt on the first lap in Abu Dhabi. The latter moment exposes the biggest weakness in Russell's game, as 11 times in 21 races he finished lap one behind Kubica.

Asked about this in Abu Dhabi, Russell gave a characteristically candid answer, an encouraging sign. Drivers who attempt to shroud problems or blame them entirely on external forces tend to be the ones who never fulfil their potential, but Russell accepted this as an area he has to work on.

While there is a small caveat to be added in that there were times when Williams was perilously light on spares, how he responds to this weakness will be the acid test in 2020. His launches were decent enough, but often his choices in crowded starts, unfamiliar to him due to spending most of his single-seater career at the sharp end, were poor.

If he doesn't improve on that, he'll be badly exposed in the cut and thrust of the midfield that he hopes to occupy. But while there were too many races where he was parked behind Kubica for lap after lap, when Russell did get past he usually dropped Kubica at a startling rate, particularly as Russell's ability to manage the tyres improved over the second half of the season.

But the central question of how much potential Russell has is how fast he is. His rookie season proved decisively that he is at least very quick, but we knew that from his junior career.

While Williams is confident he extracted the most from the 2019 car when the capricious tyres were in the correct temperature range, Russell has not yet been tested down to the final tenth
 or two that makes the difference between a superstar and a journeyman.

He's closer to the former end of that spectrum - his largely unnoticed pace in a difficult car at the great driver's circuit Suzuka confirms that. But having passed his rookie test with flying colours, it's time for the next exam.