How Russell has become the other star of F1 2025

There is a school of thought that George Russell earned his promotion to Mercedes at precisely the wrong time, for it coincided with that team’s plunge from frontrunner to also-ran in the new ground-effect era. That’s one way of looking at it; another is to say that those circumstances have been the making of him.

Undoubtedly Mercedes’ fall from grace has Russell in a competitive hinterland rather than in a consistently race-winning car. But it has also enabled him to develop his craft outside the spotlight – and, crucially, never having to play the compliant number-two role to a seven-time world champion looking for their eighth.

Russell has always been self-confident and demanding; it’s difficult to imagine how being alongside Lewis Hamilton in a championship-worthy car would have panned out. When Mercedes actually let its drivers race each other for wins, in 2016, the outcome was ugly.

The alternative of hiring Valtteri Bottas to ride shotgun also ended badly. Rewatch the start and first corner of the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix, as Bottas leaves the door flapping in the breeze for Max Verstappen; the work of a man who knows he is out of a drive at the end of the season and has given up (the resultant swing in points also ended up costing Hamilton the world championship).

Not only has Russell been spared a profoundly demoralising “George, it’s James” moment, but he has also had three seasons in which the frustrations of driving cars that are only sporadically competitive have been salved by him doing a largely better job than Hamilton of adapting to the characteristics of ground-effect F1 machinery. And this year he has elevated his game further, even though Mercedes remains mired in the ‘front-midfield’.

The season-opening Australian GP set the tone: Russell qualified strongly in fourth place, behind the two McLarens and Max Verstappen, and finished on the podium as Oscar Piastri fell foul of the changeable conditions. Granted, he benefited from being in the right place on track at the optimum time to capitalise on the final shift to intermediate tyres, but he didn’t put a wheel wrong on a day where others blundered.

Electronics glitch couldn’t stop Russell from taking brilliant Bahrain podium

Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images

Three more podiums followed before the ill-fated shift to a new rear suspension geometry, which defined the middles of Mercedes’ season. Among these was a truly remarkable second place in Bahrain. Again, this was partially a factor of others making mistakes, but Russell’s car was barely driveable in the final portion of the race owing to an electronics glitch.

For Imola in May, Mercedes introduced a new rear-suspension geometry intended to reduce the tendency of the rear to lift under braking. The benefits of this are predominantly aerodynamic, since rear ride height is critical to the floor’s performance, but it also theoretically reduces the tendency of the rear brakes to lock under the forwards’ weight transfer during braking.

Reduction of driver ‘feel’ is a known consequence of this type of suspension geometry, but the results in Mercedes’ simulation tools suggested that the gains would outweigh the consequences.

It has become a limitation in that Mercedes tends only to show well at venues with cold ambients – such as Las Vegas, where Russell won last year

Another target of the new rear suspension was to exercise more control over tyre temperatures. For the past few seasons the Mercedes cars have tended to overheat the surface of the rear tyres, which can help in terms of preparing them for a flying lap in qualifying but is problematic over a race distance. It has become a limitation in that Mercedes tends only to show well at venues with cold ambients – such as Las Vegas, where Russell won last year.

After so-so initial driver feedback, Mercedes reverted to its previous suspension spec for Monaco before refitting the anti-lift set-up from June’s Canadian GP onwards. There Russell won, and new team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli claimed his first F1 podium, but this contributed to the team losing its way in the summer.

The new suspension made the car less stable, sapping driver confidence, and a run of tracks with different characteristics and ambient temperatures added to the confusion. Montreal, where all the braking is done in a straight line and there are no real high-speed corners, masked the upgrade’s shortcomings.

Imola rear suspension upgrade proved to be a backward step

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Reverting definitively to the original rear suspension from the Hungarian GP onwards helped Russell and Antonelli make more of what they had, but there would be no more upgrades coming as Mercedes pivoted to its 2026 project.

In parallel with this, team boss Toto Wolff has made little secret of establishing connections with Verstappen and his management team. Red Bull’s woes over the past 18 months have made Max more available than he otherwise might – a fact not lost on Wolff and other team bosses, who have been circling like suitors at a Regency dance.

This, alongside the arrival of highly rated rookie Antonelli with a lot of personal Wolff energy invested in his career, must have prompted Russell to wonder whether he was enjoying as much love as he deserved from the team that has supported him since the junior formulas.

Not that he said as much in public, declaiming it as “noise” that he only has to deal with on the Thursdays of grand prix weekends, where questions about his contractual status were as inevitable as Christmas.

But it was more than just noise. Russell’s relationship with Mercedes – Wolff has a finger in his management pie, a common thread among some team bosses on the grid – adds a layer of complexity to contract talks. Continuity is by no means a given, and yet it is harder to escape. After Russell won in Canada there were those who opined that this strengthened his hand in the ongoing negotiations.

Well, yes and no – for it also added to the illusion that Russell had more agency over his future than he actually did. For his part, Wolff continued to bat away any questions about the renewal of the soon-to-expire contract.

Canadian GP win prefaced team losing its way over the summer

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

“You know, he’s been so long with us and he’s growing,” Wolff said after Russell’s first win of 2025. “The steps he’s made from being a young driver in Williams, then coming to Mercedes at a difficult time, being on par with Lewis. And then since Lewis left, being clearly the leader of the team, senior driver in the team, and it comes naturally.

“It’s not like there’s some politics. It’s just taking the place that he merits and deserves. The ambience in the team is great. And we’ve agreed on some kind of timeline when we want to settle these things. You know, with triple headers getting in the way and one race after the other now in June and July. But… We’re going to get there.”

Following what was, by Mercedes’ usual standards, a terse announcement to the effect that both its drivers would be continuing into 2026, Wolff framed the process as having been inevitable. The dalliance with Verstappen was airbrushed from history – for now.

"The truth is, if every single seat was available for next year, and I could choose any single team to race for, I believe Mercedes is my best chance of winning the championship next year" George Russell

“It was always the decision that we took from the get-go,” Wolff said in Austin in October. “It was the line-up that we chose last year. We knew that George can hold up the leadership role in there. It’s been really great. And Kimi is having a learning year. So going forward, it was pretty much a no-brainer.”

Mercedes has always said it didn’t want its drivers’ contractual status to become a constant talking point. If so, it has fallen short in this regard. Just as Bill Murray was awakened daily in the movie Groundhog Day by the strains of Sonny and Cher performing I Got You Babe, questions about contracts have occupied pole position at pretty much every Mercedes press call this season.

The team has been in an invidious position: given Antonelli’s youth and inexperience, it makes sense to keep him on a rolling annual contract, but, with disruption coming in the form of new rules in 2026, a driver of Russell’s stature would want a potential ‘out’ if Mercedes falls short next year.

Wolff having a hand in his driver’s management adds complexity to contract talks

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

That dictates different contractual arrangements that would, inherently, be conversation fodder. Hence the absence of specificity in the renewal announcement, which positioned Russell as being on a “multi-year” deal. It’s understood that it is a ‘one plus one’ including exit clauses on either side.

“I’m really happy to be continuing,” was Russell’s carefully phrased summation after the announcement. “Because the truth is, if every single seat was available for next year, and I could choose any single team to race for, I believe Mercedes is my best chance of winning the championship next year.

“I’m very happy, to be honest, because given the situation and circumstances with me and the team, Toto could have been substantially tighter if he wanted to be. But I think he really recognises that you need to reward those who are delivering, who are putting in the effort and delivering those results on track.

“And, as I said, that’s why I’m here with a smile on my face, because I’m very happy with the offer, and as I said, he could have been much tighter if he wanted to be.”

There is certainly no faulting Russell’s work ethic or his determination to “deliver”, in his words. Insiders talk about his single-minded commitment to ensuring that every performance variable can be made to work in his favour; he is famously demanding of his engineers and mechanics, but is equally demanding of himself. In Baku he dragged himself out of his sick bed to race, despite being in a “world of pain” with flu.

And there’s been no letting up after signing his contract for 2026 and beyond. During the sprint race in Austin he launched an attack on leader Verstappen, which Russell framed as a “now or never” move. Even Verstappen, no stranger to late lunges, described it as “a bit optimistic”.

“Now or never” move on Verstappen in Austin sprint demonstrated fighting spirit

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images

Many in the paddock view Russell as a driver in the classic Alain Prost style, calculating and slightly risk-averse, so the buccaneering nature of this manoeuvre made it all the more noticeable – especially in the context of a sprint where nothing much had happened after the inevitable first-corner fracas.

In Mexico, Russell engaged in a protracted period of horse trading with the pitwall to persuade them to tell Antonelli to let him past so he could have a crack at Oliver Bearman’s Haas. He not only assured them that he had the pace to do it, but promised he would give up the position to his team-mate again if he couldn’t make a pass on Bearman stick.

In the event, Mercedes failed to seize the moment, dithering for nearly 10 laps before issuing the order, by which time the opportunity had largely passed by.

Austin proved that he’s willing to go wheel to wheel with Verstappen – with the right car, that could be happening week-in, week-out next season. And that is a truly tantalising prospect

It was another example of Russell thinking independently and, indeed, stridently. At Austin, Autosport asked him what he had done to find a whole new competitive level this season – and whether there was an element of feeling he really had to demonstrate that he was the man for the team leader role rather than anyone else.

“I wasn’t quite thinking, ‘F*** ’em, I’ll show ’em’. But it’s more, you’re just looking for those smallest of margins to take your level to the next step,” he said. “And I think there isn’t one particular thing that has been the difference.

“I think it’s a contribution of confidence with my own ability, confidence with the car beneath me, confidence with my group of engineers who are the ones who directly impact my own performance. So yeah, and I guess psychologically as well.

“I’ve got a very good group of people around me, away from the track, that help me to be in the right place when I come to the circuit. So none of this external noise. It’s only noise on a Thursday. And it’s kind of in one ear, out the other and moving forward.”

If Mercedes can come out of the blocks as strongly in 2026 as it did in 2014, when the hybrid era began, that will partner Russell with the car he deserves. Austin proved that he’s willing to go wheel to wheel with Verstappen – with the right car, that could be happening week-in, week-out next season. And that is a truly tantalising prospect.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the December 2025 issue and subscribe today. 

Singapore polesitter Russell was imperious on his way to victory

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images