George Russell apologises for being late as he sits down in the Mercedes motorhome, delayed by a filming commitment. The well-mannered British driver is, to his credit, disarmingly honest about the turmoil his team have faced over the past two seasons in going from the predominant force in Formula One to flailing in and fighting a stubbornly pernicious car.
“It could have gone one of two ways,” he says, as the team prepare for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix. “It could have broken everybody, or it could have brought everybody together.”
For all that our time together has been curtailed, Russell does not deliver a stock response when asked which way he thought it would go. He considers just what it really meant for him and a Mercedes team he had joined on the back of eight consecutive constructors’ championships when they suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves adrift, furiously bailing in the wake of Red Bull as they sailed serenely into the middle distance.
“There was a moment, it was the debrief at the last race in Abu Dhabi last year,” he says. “Andrew Shovlin [Mercedes’ trackside engineering director] gave a very powerful end-of-season speech, and it was from his heart. He said there was no place he would rather be than with this group of people, in this team to come out the other side.”
Russell pauses as he completes the statement and delivers it with an intent gaze. There is an unmistakable sense that what Shovlin expressed was what he also felt and that for all their travails, there is a powerful camaraderie at the team. Lewis Hamilton repeatedly refers to it and Russell clearly shares that confidence.
Yet the 25-year-old from King’s Lynn is also unusually honest in a field of drivers where the reality of their position often goes unspoken. It has been no easy job adapting to his expectations to the reality of where Mercedes are now. “It’s difficult for all of us,” he says. “You go through this period, everybody is so used to winning – so many days of glory – and suddenly on the back foot. Everybody has put so much effort into this, it is a little bit demoralising sometimes.”
Demoralising may even be downplaying it. Russell had hopes for so much more. He delivered a brave presentation to Mercedes’ team principal, Toto Wolff, as a teenager. The team were at the height of their powers and after he explained why he should drive for them, they took notice.
That plus his track record ensured he was taken on as a Mercedes junior. He went on to win the GP3 and Formula 2 championships and then was outstanding in an underperforming Williams between 2019 and 2021. In 2020, sitting in for a Covid-stricken Hamilton at the Sakhir grand prix, he would surely have won there but for a team pit error and a puncture. There were tears of disappointment but the performance was no surprise to anyone who had followed his career.
Two years later, for all that the Mercedes was off the pace and a fearsomely malevolent car, Russell still took his debut win in Brazil, notably the only time Red Bull have been denied for the past 22 meetings. It was a highlight in a season where for the first time in his career his teammate Hamilton failed to record a win, significant in that everything he achieves is measured against the seven-time world champion.
Russell is repeatedly questioned about his relationship with his fellow Englishman, on how it must feel racing against one of F1’s greats to the extent that it must be tiresome. Yet unlikely as it may seem he now finds even this towering presence something which has turned into a positive.
“I am realistic, I see the bigger picture and I recognise who I am teammates with,” he says. “I have joked with Lewis that him staying in the sport has almost saved my career because had he left after the 2021 season people would have been pointing the finger at me for this poor performing car. Him staying on has proven otherwise.
“Its funny how the world works out sometimes. Ultimately somebody else’s decision could have totally transformed my career for the worse. It’s pretty scary to think about.”
Max Verstappen will start on pole position for Saturday's sprint race after beating McLaren's Oscar Piastri to top spot by just 0.011 seconds.
Verstappen qualified fastest for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, but he will line up in sixth after serving a grid penalty for a gearbox change.
But for the 15-lap dash in the Ardennes, the Red Bull driver begins from the front after edging out the impressive Piastri in wet-dry conditions at Spa-Francorchamps.
Carlos Sainz finished third, just 0.025sec adrift of Verstappen, with his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc fourth. Lando Norris took fifth for McLaren, while Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who appeared to trip over one another in the closing moments, are only seventh and 10th respectively for Mercedes.
Russell ran wide at La Source and returned to the track in front of Hamilton on the run up to Eau Rouge, hampering his teammate's final lap. "George went wide at turn one," said Hamilton after he failed to improve. "I had to back out."
Informed by the race engineer, Peter Bonnington, that he finished seventh, eight-tenths adrift of Verstappen, a frustrated Hamilton replied: "It doesn't help when you are held up at the beginning." He later added on the radio: "That could have been so much better, managed better."
When out of the car, the seven-time world champion said: "I am not happy about it obviously. I could have been first or second in that session." Asked about the altercation with Russell, Hamilton added: "I was letting him ... well, it doesn't really matter."
Verstappen is on course to gallop to his third world championship in as many years and the Dutch driver will be expected to extend his 110-point lead over his teammate Sergio Pérez later on Saturday, with the Mexican only eighth on the grid. PA Media
This season the title has already gone for Mercedes but Russell remains confident he can win a world championship. He once more breathes deeply in appraising his chances as Max Verstappen races away with the drivers’ prize again this season but considers with no little maturity that there is time yet in playing the long game.
“F1 goes through phases. Max had three or four years at Red Bull where he was finishing behind Lewis at every race,” he says with a smile. “Look at him now, winning every race. You have to be patient and I have a solid 15 years left in me.”
