Now team leader at Mercedes, George Russell is confident ‘my time will come’ as he bids to escape the shadow of Lewis Hamilton and lead the Silver Arrows to F1 glory
George Russell is adamant he will be a Formula 1 champion and insists he has nothing to prove after three years of going up against Lewis Hamilton.
Russell acquitted himself well over those first three seasons with Mercedes, beating Hamilton in two of them, and ended last year 22 points ahead having finished higher in 15 and qualified better for 19 races.
Now 27, he is team leader at the Silver Arrows following his fellow Brit’s move to Ferrari. And Russell believes he has already shown that he is capable of stepping up and delivering in that role.
“The results speak for themselves and I don’t have anything I need to prove or show,” he told the BBC. “I am proud of the results I’ve achieved going up against somebody like Lewis. At the end of 2021, statistically and in terms of perception, Lewis was the greatest of all time.
“I’ve had three years against the greatest of all time, and I finished ahead of him two out of the three years I had as team-mates. And finished ahead more times in qualifying and more times in the race. If this was a different time or a different era, if you finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton, you’re a world champion.”
Russell is only the third driver to outscore Hamilton over the course of a season as his team-mate. Jenson Button did it in 2011 at McLaren while Nico Rosberg famously beat him to the 2016 title before promptly retiring. Russell’s achievement was impressive and stands him in good stead now he is Mercedes’ main man.
The Silver Arrows are eyeing rule changes in 2026 as an ideal opportunity to get back to winning championships, and Russell is also biding his time. He said: “I know my time will come and I’ve just got to ensure that I keep on performing. Whether it’s this year or next year, it’ll come.
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“If I keep delivering those results, as I did over these last three years against the best driver of all time, I believe I will get myself in the fight and hopefully a world championship to my name.”
Russell is partnered by Andrea Kimi Antonelli, for whom Mercedes have high hopes. They believe he can go on to be the next big superstar of the sport but he is still just 18 and will need to be guided by many within the team, his more experienced team-mate included.
Regarding the young Italian, Russell said: “He’s a great kid – very young, but he’s a really nice guy. Super-fast, of course. Being thrown in at the deep end, which is going to be a big challenge. But in terms of raw speed, I don’t think you can question it. There’s going to be an interesting new dynamic.”