How Russell has proven he deserves to be Hamilton's Mercedes heir

As reigning world champion Max Verstappen closed in on the silver Mercedes and lined up a move early in this May’s Spanish Grand Prix, the outcome seemed preordained. Throughout Verstappen’s Formula 1 title campaign last season, his duels with fierce rival Lewis Hamilton would typically unfold along familiar lines: Max would make an assertive lunge of the let-me-through-or-we-crash variety and, if Lewis wasn’t accommodating enough, the carbonfibre would fly.

This time it was different. Verstappen was fighting a much weaker Mercedes in Barcelona, meaning a pass was unlikely to require much heavy lifting. Still, it was a pass he had to make if he wanted to be in contention for the win. Max slung his car up the inside into Turn 1, edging his car further left to leave scant millimetres more than the one-car gap required. This was a manoeuvre virtually guaranteed to make most drivers – even those from the top drawer – capitulate.

But not George Russell. With just enough space to keep his car on the outside, Russell chopped across the Red Bull’s nose, protecting the inside for Turn 3 and forcing Verstappen to back out. It rightly sparked loud claps and cheers in the Mercedes garage. This season has been an unexpected slog for a team used to leading the pack but here was a high point: Mercedes’ young star had stood up to Max – and won that encounter.

It was further proof Mercedes had made the right decision in promoting Russell at the expense of Valtteri Bottas at the end of last season. Having completed his apprenticeship at Williams over the previous three years, Russell has taken full opportunity of his big break at Mercedes, dispelling any lingering doubts over his readiness – and, in the process, stamped his claim to be Britain’s next world champion.

Fitting in straight away

One key reason for Russell’s surefooted start at Mercedes is that he required no introductions and very little period of adjustment, having been part of Mercedes’ junior programme since 2017. While many similar schemes involve hanging around in team kit and little else, from day one Russell was embedded in all the meetings and debriefings, giving him a deep understanding of how the team operated – and what made it such a serial winning operation.

“It seems like he has been here forever,” says Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff. “He settled in well – this is to say the least.”

Russell has immediately settled into life with Mercedes, and looks increasingly comfortable

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Russell describes his integration into a full-time race seat at Mercedes as “pretty seamless”, but operating procedures have shifted somewhat in the past months as it’s become clear the W13 chassis isn’t a winner yet. A team accustomed to unlocking a car’s innate performance quickly has had to dig deeper than ever, to understand what’s gone wrong and to develop its way out of what may be a conceptual cul-de-sac. This might have had a dispiriting effect on a driver coming in with the expectation of having a winning car straight away, but Russell has impressed the team with his willingness to join in that effort.

“Seeing it first-hand is inspiring and pushing me to go above and beyond,” Russell says. “With 2,000 people between [the team’s two sites at] Brackley and Brixworth, that passion for winning is immense, and the work that they are putting in at the moment, especially during a relatively tough time for the team, is inspiring.”

How struggles at Williams set Russell up to excel

During his three seasons at Williams Russell earned a reputation for outperforming his cars, and sometimes even over-reaching in his determination to score points. He was demanding, both of himself and of the team, and ambitious – competitive virtues which helped galvanise Williams as it bumped along the bottom in 2019-20, and impressed the new owners and their appointed team principal Jost Capito last season.

It would have been very easy for a less determined individual to become disillusioned or even to slack off a little and allow the car to take the blame. Instead, insiders say, he approached every race methodically with the intention of maximising the result from it, then equally methodically sifting the experience for ways to improve next time.

"If you go in expecting to win every single race, you’re only going to be disappointed if you don’t. If we’re fighting for P5, then that’s P5; if you’re fighting for the win, you’re fighting for a win" George Russell

Those years of graft set him up well for life at Mercedes as the team faced an unexpected challenge: its answer to the new aerodynamic regulations, the radical 'zeropod' concept on the W13 car, hasn’t delivered the kind of performance that had served Hamilton and Bottas so well in the five previous years. Recurring, inconsistent bouncing has forced the team to run W13 at higher than optimal rideheights which prevent it from attaining the levels of downforce predicted in the windtunnel. It initially left Russell struggling to compete for poles and wins, but with deep safety concerns the FIA has since moved to address.

While you would forgive Russell for being disappointed that his long-awaited shot with a frontrunning team has thus far only yielded a handful of podiums and that shock pole in Hungary, acting as a sign of the progress the team has made, he was always “quite rational” about what to expect.

Toiling at the back of the F1 field with Williams has helped Russell deal with Mercedes' 2022 struggles

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“There were no guarantees that we’d have the fastest car with a big regulation change,” he says. “If you go in expecting to win every single race, you’re only going to be disappointed if you don’t. If we’re fighting for P5, then that’s P5; if you’re fighting for the win, you’re fighting for a win. But it doesn’t really matter what position you’re in. My job doesn’t really change as such.”

It’s noteworthy that Russell cites P5. Up to his retirement at Silverstone in a first-corner clash that was fault-free on his part, Russell hadn’t finished outside the top five despite Mercedes’ well-documented issues. He was the only driver to score points in every race through the same period, displaying a kind of consistency which moved TV pundits to gleefully exchange the ‘Mr Saturday’ nickname they’ve trotted out time and time again in recent years with ‘Mr Sunday’. Not that it then stopped it making a comeback after the Hungary pole.

Russell has called the streak of top-five finishes a “meaningless stat” and refuses to set any results-based benchmarks by which his first season in silver can be declared a success.

“Everything is always relative,” he says. “Right now, I can’t say I’ll be disappointed if I don’t have a victory. That’s unfair, because a victory is just totally out of sight. It truly is just focusing on ourselves, as a driver seeing how I can improve, as a team seeing how we can improve. If we continue to do that, then hopefully the bonus is some of these victories.”

As at Williams, the matter of wins being off the table does nothing to alter Russell’s approach: “Obviously if you’re standing on the top step of the podium, you’re going to have a bit more satisfaction. But ultimately, you know within yourself if you’re performing at the highest position possible.”

Is Russell really beating Hamilton?

The natural yardstick for any racing driver is the man across the garage.

As Russell was told by Wolff in the staged chat for the latest series of Drive to Survive (filmed many weeks after he’d already been informed of his Mercedes promotion): “The bad news is you’re driving against Lewis Hamilton.” Russell always made clear he was under no illusions about the challenge that awaited him, going to toe-to-toe with statistically the greatest driver of all time and the man who had inspired so much of his own racing dreams.

But, given Russell’s heroics with Williams and the parallels that could be drawn with Hamilton’s own shot at the big time with McLaren in 2007, when he found himself alongside an established world champion, many observers were salivating at the prospect of conflict. Mercedes’ failure to deliver a competitive enough car has had a dampening effect – battling for fifth and sixth does little to energise the tabloid press – but nevertheless a captive narrative has emerged. As the early run of races unfolded and Russell, not Hamilton, was the man racking up more points and podiums while Hamilton was the one speaking more frankly and negatively about the car’s issues, it was easy to conclude George was bettering his more experienced team-mate.

While Russell got the better start to 2022, Hamilton has found an edge as the car has improved

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Russell finished ahead in seven consecutive races between Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, scoring three podiums to Hamilton’s none in that same period. It wasn’t an entirely fair reflection of their form through that period, since Safety Cars denied Hamilton better results in both Australia and Miami, as arguably did Kevin Magnussen’s lap-one biff in Spain. And yet it was enough evidence for those out of touch with paddock matters, perhaps with a tendency to appear on breakfast television, to noisily declare that Hamilton was beaten and should consider calling it quits.

This is not how the team reads the situation. Hamilton’s greater experience meant he was the natural candidate to evaluate some of Mercedes’ more radical set-up experiments as it fast-tracked its efforts to understand W13’s behaviour. These were necessary but not always successful in terms of extracting lap time, moving Lewis to declare after the Canadian Grand Prix: “Maybe in the second half of the season, George can do the experiments!”

1996 world champion Damon Hill hails Russell as being “so dependable and consistent” through the early part of this year, but agrees it’s far too early to draw unequivocal conclusions about who is faster. “Obviously his qualifying performances have put Lewis a little in the shade,” Hill says. “But I think we can put some of that down to Lewis attempting to do things that have interrupted the flow.” Russell accepts it has been “a unique season” for Mercedes in how it has approached its set-up work, forcing him and Hamilton to do “purposefully opposite things and come to the middle from there”.

"[George] is in the right place for it. I really think that, whether or not I’m here, he has all the qualities to help take this team forwards in the future and lead them to success" Lewis Hamilton

As such there have been very few occasions where the two drivers have been properly comparable, running closely on track and on the same tyres. But the Canadian Grand Prix provided some useful insight. The late safety car left Hamilton and Russell third and fourth with only a one-lap difference in tyre life, yet Hamilton was able to peel away at rate of half a second per lap, ultimately finishing five seconds up the road. This is not the performance of a defeated man on his way out.

“Things seemingly go for you or seemingly go against you,” says Russell. “I had quite a good run, those first eight races were pretty good.” He accepts Canada and Silverstone were not only “a bit more tricky” on his side of the garage, but says they proved “just how fast Lewis is”.

George isn’t complacent about the force he races alongside every weekend; write off Lewis Hamilton at your peril…

Russell's run to pole at the Hungarian GP underlined his ability to hack it at the top of F1

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

It’s all part of the plan for Mercedes

Contrary to some of the more lunatic fringe opinions in circulation, Russell’s transfer to Mercedes was never about beating Hamilton from the off – or about destabilising him in the hope of driving down his contractual demands. It was part of a long-term plan to have a suitable successor in place when Hamilton, now 37, decides to hang up his helmet.

At times last year Hamilton spoke openly about seeing no reason for Mercedes to split him up with long-serving team-mate Valtteri Bottas after five years. But now Lewis calls Russell “the right choice for the team” and takes pride in wanting to “be a little of part of helping him progress.”

“I definitely see that he’s got so much potential in him,” Hamilton adds.

The respect is mutual. Even after years of watching from the sidelines, being on the other side of the garage has enabled Russell to develop an even greater appreciation of how the seven-times champion operates. “So many people just think he turns up at the last minute and just jumps in the car and lets his talent do the talking, but that’s far from the case,” Russell says.

“Lewis works so hard. The way he works with the engineers, I’ve been very fortunate to see how he operates and the way he motivates the team, trying to get every single last millisecond out of the car. I’ve quite enjoyed just being able to watch how he does his thing.”

Observing Hamilton’s methodology hasn’t tempted Russell to change his own approach – he dismisses the idea as “a copy/paste sort of thing” – but his determination and resilience has impressed a technical team which is itself under immense pressure to find solutions quickly.

Russell has been able to learn from watching Hamilton work with his Mercedes engineers

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“What’s been interesting working with George is just to see the development of his understanding of the car, being able to work with the engineers, to explain what his issues are and pick up on the small differences,” says Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott. “Not only is he quick, he’s also bright as well.”

At Williams, Russell quickly developed a reputation for being forthright in the best possible way with his feedback, and not letting any emotions, positive or negative, cloud his thinking. It’s a rationality which has carried through to life at Mercedes. “Whether George is eighth or second, the debriefing wouldn’t change,” says Wolff. “He’s still very logical, trying to find solutions. There is not too much emotion in that. And that’s great. He’s on a very great trajectory and a great level.”

It may seem premature to anoint George Russell as Britain’s next Formula 1 world champion when – with the important “at the time of writing” caveat – he has yet to win a grand prix. But we are in the hinterlands of a new era, one in which the majority of Lewis Hamilton’s on-track achievements lie behind him and the prospect of him giving way to a driver with more runway ahead of them is, if not imminent, not too very far away.

"I definitely see that he’s got so much potential in him" Lewis Hamilton

So far Russell has done everything that could be expected of someone hoping to follow Hamilton’s illustrious trajectory. He’s earned the respect of his team and, as evidenced by his GPDA director role, the respect of his peers. Crucially, Russell hasn’t let the shift to Mercedes and first shot with a frontrunning team change his approach – or forced him to wilt under the additional pressure that, no matter how robust his mentality, won’t have been as intense at Williams.

Regardless of Mercedes’ current predicament, to have slotted in as if he belongs there (and so quickly matched up against a driver of Lewis Hamilton’s calibre) – is credit to all the work Russell has done to earn this opportunity – and potentially be the man to succeed Hamilton as Britain’s next world champion. Lewis certainly seems to think so, though naturally he chooses his words carefully.

“He’s in the right place for it,” says Hamilton. “I really think that, whether or not I’m here, he has all the qualities to help take this team forwards in the future and lead them to success.”

Just how far can Russell go in his F1 career?

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images