Talented, fast, up an coming, determined and very articulate, George Russel has been one of the most prominent young talents of the motorsport world during the past few years. Since 2020 he had been strongly associated with an anticipating move to World Champions Mercedes. He was a Mercedes development driver, represented by no other but Mr Toto Wolff. Everyone reckoned that the Williams team that at the time was struggling financially but also inside the circuits, was not a fitting place for the young and ambitious Russell. Moreover, his astonishing campaigns in F3 and F2 during 2017 and 2018 , when he managed to seal both titles in his rookie years, had long before put him in the radar of the teams. That rare accomplishment is an accolade of few racers that usually end up in the tope step of the Formula one podium.
That is exactly the image George Russel always wanted to be associated with, the one of a Formula 1 champion, in the making. He had been 1st throughout his entire junior career and could not bare the idea of just being another Formula one driver, he wanted to fight for wins and championships. He persistently strived to be depicted as the next big thing, almost entitled to the Mercedes seat and the championship.
Things escalated during the 2020 season when Russell had to fill in for Lewis Hamilton when the latter was diagnosed with covid-19. Finally, Russell had the chance to show what he could do in a fast car and so he did. The 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix was his big chance. He lost pole position for a couple of tenths of a second but managed to pipe Valteri Bottas at the start of the GP and kept him behind for the best part of the race. He even had to re-overtake him during the race because of a pit stop mistake that left him 5th in the race. He was on his way to retake the lead of the race when a tyre puncture led him back to the pits and eventually to ninth position behind Valtteri Bottas. His performance was brilliant but the classification states that he finished behind his teammate Valtteri Bottas both in the qualifying and the race.
That race sparkled a lot of controversy since most fans and a lot of the F1 press regarded Russell’s performance as a clear indicator that he was way faster than Valtteri Bottas and that he should replace him in the Mercedes team.
Toto Wolff on the other side, deemed that it was not the time for that change. Valtteri Bottas had been loyal to the Team, for 4 years, helping them win 4 constructors championships and most importantly he was liked by Mercedes number 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, who felt that alongside Bottas could focus on the drivers championships without worrying about inside competition and tensions rising within the Team, like it had happened with Nico Rosberg during the 2014-2016 campaigns.
So, Russel stayed with Williams at 2021 but it was a matter of time before he would sign for Mercedes , as it actually happened. Russel moved to Mercedes from 2022 onwards and Bottas moved to Alfa Romeo Sauber. Russel was visibly happy and relaxed during the 2022 campaign because of his new contract and he even got some excellent results such as the second place podium in the Belgian Grand prix. Russel even stated that his 3rd year in Williams was unnecessary and he only stayed there because of the contract the Williams did not want to break. Some may say, on the other hand that this was a powermove from Toto Wolff to show his young prodigy who is in control and that no one is above the Team, HIS Team.
Russel seemed to be unfazed from that speculations when the 2022 season started, finally being able to compete for podiums , wins and possibly even the championship. It is safe to assume that he was probably thinking of the possibility of him winning the title over his legendary teammate establishing himself as World Champion for the years to come.
The reality hit him and the Mercedes team hard when for the first time since 2013 they started the season with a non competitive car. They were over a second slower in qualifying suffering from the effects of the porpoising effect and unable to understand the behavior of the car. They remained calm and tried for a performance resurgence that could put them back in the championship fight. However this never happened and after 18 races they have not been able to win once. Under these circumstances the performance of Russell against Hamilton became of less important for the team as well as for the fans who would just be dissatisfied and disappointed seeing the team seriously struggle for the first time.
In terms of points Russell seems to have gotten the better of Hamilton and someone could argue that this is poof that he delivered what was expected from him. Moreover, he accomplished to finish almost every race within the top 5 gaining the reputation of a solid consistent driver.
Hamilton on the other side could argue that most of that points advantage was created during the first part of the season, when Hamilton was focused on experimenting more with the set up of the car trying to figure out a solution to the Teams problem, while Russel would just do what he had to do to perform in each individual race in order to prove himself within the Team, accumulating more points that way.
More importantly if we look closely at the season, at the few races that Hamilton felt comfortable with the car, his performance was strikingly better than Russel’s. In Spain he spun in the first round and had to fight his way from the back of the grid, but his race pace was significantly faster than Russel’sl throughout the race. In Hungary Russel was in Pole Position while Hamilton started from 7th. Not only was Hamilton faster than Russell during the race, he even managed to reach him and overtake him on merit of pure pace.
Max Verstappen won the 2016 spanish Grand prix and beat established teammate Daniel Riccardo in the 2018 season. As of today he has 32 race wins and 2 world championship titles. Charles Leclerc managed to beat Sebastian Vettel during the 2019 and 2020 seasons. As of today he has won 5 grand prixes, some of them in dominant fashion. Both of them have established themselves showing that they can extract the maximum out of every car, handling pressure and finding ways to reach the win. George Russell on the other hand during his first year of serious competition showed that he cannot compete with Lewis Hamilton on a good day. He is fast but he does not seem to be able to find that extra something that the greats of F1 always seem to find. He is consistent but never seems to be able to surprise during a race getting better results than expected. He is very precise in his technical approach during the set up of the car, but does not seem to be able to make the car outperform itself.
Russell seems to be more concerned about proving himself within the Team , than actually performing at the best level possible. Lando Norris has also stated that George appears to be more stressed since he joined Mercedes and that he rarely smiles.
It can easily be said that George Russell has had a decent first year in Mercedes, especially if you take into consideration the circumstances of them not having a great car. The reality is that George Russell has not been able to showcase any signs of racing brilliance during the 2022 season. In that way he actually refutes himself . He tried really hard to convince the F1 world that he belongs with the best, the Hamiltons, Verstappenns, Schumachers and Vettels of the sport but during the 2022 season he has just been adequate resembling more of the number 2 drivers racing alongside the aforementioned drivers. Under that angle, 2022 is probably not just a mediocre or bad season for Russel but the worst season of his career, the season of a terribly painful realization.
