How Russell is performing like Alonso

Fernando Alonso's first season in Formula 1 was a pointless one.

He was classified last of the regular drivers, failed to score a point and was behind Minardi team-mate Tarso Marques - a driver nobody tipped for great things in grand prix racing in the future - in the championship. The black-and-white facts are those of a rookie season of an F1 nonentity.

George Russell's first season in F1 is, so far, a pointless one.

He is classified last of the regular drivers, has failed to score a point and is behind Williams team-mate Robert Kubica - a driver nobody is tipping for great things in grand prix racing in the future - in the championship. The black-and-white facts are those of a rookie season of an F1 nonentity.

But Alonso is proof that numbers alone only tell a part of the story and require interpretation, analysis and depth of understanding to put into context.

The reality is - in his Minardi season - Alonso showed plenty of signs that he was a star in the making. What happened in the years that followed proved that conclusively.

With Russell, we only have the now to go on. While it's fiendishly difficult to judge his exact level given he's crushing his struggling team-mate (19-0 in qualifying with an average advantage of just under six tenths, with just two defeats in races), and he is not in a car fast enough to dice with the midfield where tiny successes or failures could make the difference between a top-10 or a finish in the teens, it has been a classy season.

So, how can we be sure he's performing well?

Speed is the most difficult thing to gauge. Clearly, he's fast, but given there have been myriad occasions when he would have been in exactly the same position had he been four tenths faster or four tenths slower on a Saturday, there are not so many markers to judge him against. But Williams conducts comprehensive analysis, as does Russell's backer Mercedes, and he's proved that he's genuinely quick.

"I'm a driver who is very smooth, my laps are always clean. If you watched my onboards you wouldn't necessarily think it was right on the limit but from within it does feel it" George Russell

"As a driver you know when you have done a good job, a good lap," says Russell. When asked how precise that impression can be, he adds: "Within a tenth. You know if you have extracted everything you believe you could have done."

But some drivers do talk of step changes in their understanding of how to extract pace from a car. An example of this is when things really clicked for Sebastian Vettel in Friday practice for the 2008 European Grand Prix in Valencia. He was told by technical director (and former Ayrton Senna race engineer) Giorgio Ascanelli that he must understand why his performance went up a level. Vettel came back the next day adamant he had - and proved it.

Russell has made progress through the year, with a few step changes along the way.

In Hungary, after his qualifying performance he highlighted a leap in tyre understanding that had helped him. More recently, he also appears to have unlocked another level in race conditions. This is supported by his pace at Austin, where he was well beyond Kubica's level on Sunday.

Such is the nature of F1 today that the Pirellis lie at the heart of performance, something that appears to hold Kubica back as much as that understanding has helped Russell.

"Tyres are the big one," says Russell. "Over one lap in Hungary and then in the middle half of the end of the season - as of a couple of races ago I feel I made another big step in my race pace and understanding of tyres in the race. And earlier in the year, [I had to] understand that maybe a harder car to drive is maybe quicker than a nicer car to drive.

"There have been times when I had gone in a certain direction with the set-up to have a more driveable car, but it was slower and compromised me in other areas. These little learnings have helped me."

That adaptability extends to driving style. While Russell defaults to working with the car rather than trying to provoke it, he is willing to experiment with different approaches. But what is consistent is that mistakes are relatively rare, and most that do happen tend to be relatively small.

"There's no fundamental for me," he says of his dynamic preferences. "I'm a driver who is very smooth, my laps are always clean. If you watched my onboards you wouldn't necessarily think it was right on the limit but from within it does feel it. Today, with the weight of the car and the tyres, it tends to work out quite well. But I wouldn't necessarily know how I would describe my driving style."

But the bottom line is that it works. But from trackside observations it's generally economical, keeping the medium speed up and largely avoiding overdriving.

Regardless of whether there is more pace to come - and Russell is still refining his craft - what really grabs you is the way he conducts himself, both in terms of his approach and the way he behaves in the car.

Over the radio, he is calm, rigorous and precise with his comments and feedback. This is all part of his approach of treating this almost like a test season. While he's not being tested properly in the cut-and-thrust of racing, he is able to work on his skillset and understanding without some of the more attention-grabbing distractions that fellow Formula 2 class-of-2018 graduates Alex Albon and Lando Norris face.

"There's a lot of things I've picked up this year and managed to fine-tune over what, let's say, Lando or Alex could have done - and especially if I was in their shoes," says Russell.

"Every race you have to fully optimise because that's the difference between qualifying P7 for them or P13. You don't have an opportunity to try a brand-new set of tyres in FP3 and try something. That's given me an advantage and I feel I am a more complete driver for it."

Russell is in a car with a near identical average deficit over the season to Alonso's Minardi (4.331% off the pace versus 4.430%)

Russell should perhaps be regarded as a proto-complete driver. He's not the finished article - nobody is after just one season - and, as Lewis Hamilton has pointed out recently, the best never stop learning, improving, chipping away at their craft.

But he has all the qualities needed to be a well-rounded racer capable of thriving amid the multi-faceted demands of grand prix racing. It's this approach, intellect and professionalism that will stand him in good stead. He's a natural thinking driver and appears to have soaked up huge amounts of knowledge from this most difficult of seasons.

"I've always been able to take a lot in while driving," he says. "I remember when I first started testing cars, I used to always be able to spot where my dad was standing on the grandstand or around the track. I don't know why and I wouldn't look for him; I just seem to have a bit more capacity to still do my job and take information in. Doing stupid things like that five or six years ago probably helped me today when there's a lot going on.

"You've got to let the driving come naturally and not overthink it, especially in Formula 1. That way it gives you more brain power to think about other things the team needs to know about."

For a driver in the midfield or at the front, it's straightforward to pick out the standout races and qualifying performances. Most drivers face situations where tiny margins differentiate between, say, a haul of a few points or nothing, or gain you two or three places on the grid over cars with stronger underlying pace just by nailing the best from your machinery. But for Russell, just as with Alonso in 2001, these are harder to pick out.

But in both cases, the team was hugely impressed. Back in 2001, Minardi team owner Paul Stoddart described Alonso as the revelation of a season in which Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya also made their debuts. He was right, but this was signaled only by performances such as qualifying 17th at Indianapolis and defeating the Benetton drivers in Spain.

Russell is in a car with a near identical average deficit over the season to Alonso's Minardi (4.331% off the pace versus 4.430%). While Alonso had to take a different approach to mitigating his car's limitations, often hustling it to greater heights than it deserved, Russell has proved to be an outstandingly smooth driver during most of the year.

Russell's Budapest qualifying performance, where he came close to reaching Q2 and raced with the midfield, was headline-grabbing, but there have been plenty of other strong showings.

At Silverstone and Monza, Russell was actually closer to the outright pace than at the Hungaroring, while his qualifying performance at Suzuka, which was overshadowed by brake troubles in the race, was particularly eye-catching and delivered Williams's fourth-best lap relative to the front of the year.

"I'd say Suzuka, Monza, Hungary," says Russell when asked to pick the standout weekends.

"Monza was a really strong one for us, or for me - it was unfortunate we had a bit of an issue with the car and on my final run in Q1 we picked up some damage. We're still not sure how we did it and I lost downforce. After two corners, we knew there was a big problem.

"Obviously, everyone sees Hungary as the one that was exceptional. It was very good but there was nothing standout versus other races I've done."

Alonso and Russell's stories will diverge heading into year two.

Alonso stepped out of racing to test for the renamed Renault team in 2002 before replacing Jenson Button in '03 and emerging as a race winner, then taking the first of two world championships two seasons later.

Russell will continue with Williams, but like Alonso he is under contract to a big team and on his current trajectory has every chance of getting himself into a Mercedes down the line. If he continues his current rate of improvement, the smart money is on that happening.

The key now is that Williams, having tested some aspects of Russell's game this season, produces a car that adds different demands to the mix next year.

Russell is clearly very good and may just have turned in an Alonso 2001-style season. Now he needs the machinery to show that he really is that good in a more real sporting competition than a back-of-the grid car can offer.