George Russell Reflects On His Disparity With Lewis Hamilton: “I Don’t Think”

Sabyasachi Biswas | 03/11/2023
George Russell Reflects On His Disparity With Lewis Hamilton: "I Don't Think"

Even though George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are driving the same car, there is a considerable difference in performance when it comes to their pace. Both drivers have found it tough to be consistent throughout the season, but the tides seem to favor Hamilton overall. However, Russell recently came up to state the team is working hard on resolving this disparity.

The 25-year-old opened up about his performances this year. After having beaten Hamilton last year, his performances have slightly dipped this season. As a result, he had to think about what was going wrong.

Mercedes isn’t the fastest team on the grid either, which means that the Brackley-based outfit has to work hard to solve things. The performance witnessed in qualifying is very different from what we see out on the race track.

Speaking about this, the former Williams driver said as per MotorsportWeek, “Lewis and I, over the course of the year, I don’t think we’ve ever been on the same pace. I think over the last two years our qualifying record is almost the same, but it’s either one driver is 0.4s or 0.6s ahead or it’s the other.”

How contrasting has been Hamilton and Russell’s performance this year?

George Russell had a very impressive first year in Mercedes when he joined in 2022. He came into the team and beat a seven-time world champion in Hamilton  his and therefore, most people expected him to get only better come 2023.

Hamilton, however, had other ideas and didn’t allow his young compatriot to get the better of him. The 38-year-old has been the better driver this season, by far.

Hamilton stands in P3 in the Drivers’ championship with 220 points after 19 races. On the other hand, Russell stands in P8 with 151 points in same number of races. The F1 world champion has six podiums to his name and a pole position, the 25-year-old only has one podium so far.

Nevertheless, everyone at Mercedes is working hard to become a winning team once again. With the improvements they are bringing about, Hamilton expects things to settle in favor of them as he looks to get back in the championship hunt.

Post Edited By: Somin Bhattacharjee

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Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.