George Russell change spotted as Mercedes have a different animal on their hands

George Russell and Mercedes head into the Spanish Grand Prix on the back of a Monaco weekend which went poorly and saw the Brit show a more feisty side of his personality

Who had George Russell becoming the rogue of the Formula 1 grid on their 2025 bingo card? Well, that isn’t really asking too much these days with everyone getting along far too nicely. Interestingly, when we have had a bit of needle of late, it’s usually been Russell at the centre of it.

There was that glorious spat he had with Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi last year, which saw the Brit stand up to the Red Bull man in a way Lando Norris never did. And then in Monaco last Sunday he shrugged off his teacher’s pet vibe, deliberately cutting a chicane to overtake Alex Albon and then dared the stewards to punish him for it on the radio.

They did. And George’s mouth got him in more trouble than he might have been as they upgraded a five or 10 second time penalty into a drive-through which cost him around 20 seconds.

Why did he do it? “I was tired of seeing Alex driving like a grandma,” he said in Barcelona this weekend. It feels like we’re seeing a new side of George these days, one more sure of himself.

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That comes with experience, of course, but it also feels like escaping from Lewis Hamilton’s shadow at Mercedes has done him the world of good. Because one thing that all the best drivers in F1 history have in common, other than the natural talent needed to win championships, is a healthy arrogance.

He’s always been quick but was far too polite in his early years on the F1 grid. Give this new version of Russell a championship-challenging car, and I’m more confident than ever that he’d give anyone a run for their money.

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Flavio Briatore promised this week that Alpine will be winning races next year, despite currently sitting ninth out of 10 teams in the championship having scored seven whole points.

He’s clearly confident that the new Mercedes engines, which Alpine will use from 2026 after Renault binned off their own programme, will be head and shoulders above the rest.

But Flav’s forgetting that McLaren, Williams and Mercedes themselves will also be using those same power units. And, unlike Alpine, those teams have all got their acts together and aren’t giant chaotic messes behind the scenes. That seems important.

From the archive

One of the most outstanding drives of Michael Schumacher’s entire F1 career came at Barcelona in 1994, where the gearbox on his Bennetton failed to the extent he only had fifth gear left available – and still he finished second behind only winner Damon Hill.

Fast fact

Nico Rosberg’s 2015 win was the last time someone other than Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton tasted victory in Barcelona.

Inside track

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is likely to go the same way as Spa in Belgium and become a rotational F1 host after 2026, with the shiny new Madrid street track angling to take over as the official Spanish Grand Prix venue after its debut next year.