After four grand prix weekends this past season, George Russell lay just six points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings. It’s easy to overlook – given the way the trajectory of the season funnelled into the three-way fight between Verstappen and the two McLaren drivers – the all-round strength of Russell’s year.
Partly that is because Mercedes never quite made the leap to full competitiveness, even in the final year of the second ground-effect era. The W16 was supposed to smooth out the bumps in Mercedes’ balance of performance, keeping its predecessor’s decent high-speed pace but curing a reluctance to turn, especially in slow corners, and a tendency to rarely balance the tyre temperatures on the front and rear axles optimally. It was an improvement, just not quite enough to cut it regularly at the very front.
As a result, Russell found himself mired in a sort of front-midfield position in the early races, not fast enough to challenge the McLarens but sufficient for him to claim a clutch of podiums early on. Most impressive of these was his second place in Bahrain under pressure from behind as his car suffered an electrical glitch.
Arguably these seasons where Mercedes has lost its previous position of outright dominance have been the making of Russell as he develops his craft, confidence, and the ability to weather pressure and disappointments. The battle for the drivers’ title naturally hogged the headlines, but he is the only driver outside that top three to have won a grand prix in 2025 – this despite Mercedes going down what proved to be a blind alley with a new rear suspension geometry introduced mid-season.
Two years ago in Singapore, he threw away a potential podium by smiting the wall in the closing stages. In 2025 he decisively closed that chapter by winning it on merit – and, as he said afterwards, “I’m a different driver now”.
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