Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko feels that George Russell performing well in Qualifying won’t make up for his lack of race pace at Mercedes.
Russell has been tipped as a future World Champion ever since he made his F1 debut in 2019. He came into the sport on the back of winning the 2018 F2 Championship, and brought a lot of promise with him.
So far, he’s only driven for the Williams F1 team in Formula 1. They are a historic name, but have gone into a downward slump over the last few years. As a result, Russell couldn’t fight for points for the majority of his stint with them.
2021 was different as Williams provided Russell with a car, that allowed him to showcase his talent. He put in plenty of strong performances throughout the campaign, drawing praise from prominent F1 figures like Fernando Alonso.
In particular, his qualifying performances caught the F1 community by storm. His FW43 was better that her predecessors, but the fact that Russell got the car into Q2 in all but one race in 2021 was astonishing.
He event got into Q3 on several instances, and managed to put the car into the front row behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull in Belgium. At Spa, his P2 finish in Qualifying earned the team from Oxfordshire their first podium since 2017.
Despite proving his worth to many, he is yet to impress Red Bull’s Helmut Marko with his race performances.
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In terms of race pace, George Russell and Nicholas Latifi weren’t far apart, says Marko
In spite of his strong qualifying performances, Russell had only 16 points to his name. While this was a massive improvement when compared to Williams’ recent seasons, many felt the the 23-year old could have done more.
Russell often failed to convert his strong qualifying performances into big points finishes for the team. The Williams’ car’s race pace may have been a reason for that as it wasn’t fast enough to compete with the likes of Alpine and Aston Martin.
Regardless, Marko feels that the difference between Latifi and Russell in the Williams wasn’t as stark as people made it out to be.
Russell will team up with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes in 2022. Alongside one of the greatest drivers of all time, Marko wants to see how the Brit fares.
“Now let’s see what Mr. Russell will do at Mercedes and whether the praise he has received in advance is justified,” he said. “I want to see that first.”
“There’s no discussion in qualifying, he’s sensational there but if you look at his race speed, he wasn’t far ahead of Latifi.”
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