George Russell talks about the time when he had some really tough moments in his F1 career that made him stronger and improve.
As the saying goes, “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. The same applies to George Russel’s past three years at Williams before moving to Mercedes.
The Briton race driver for the first two years competed with probably the worst car on the grid. Yet, he managed to show his calibre and is still viewed as the future world champion.
However, Russell talking about his time at Williams, said that there were really harsh moments in nature. In the end, he managed to overcome that and now he thinks he’s stronger than before.
“We made a really strong start, and then there was the incident, and I was actually running in the points for the majority of the race,” Russell said in a roundtable interview including Motorsport.com at the end of last year.
“I think I was in P10 for the majority of the time. And then [Charles] Leclerc has to pit for some reason, he wasn’t catching up, so I was in P9 during the red flag for [Lance] Stroll’s incident.
“Then I made a bad start, and that felt like it was our one opportunity of the year because we didn’t really have opportunities up to that point. It was like the opportunity just went, and we’ll never get the opportunity.
“It was our one chance. That was a really tough one after that race.”
2020 appearance for Mercedes was an emotional rollercoaster for George Russell
Before the Sakhir GP 2020, Lewis Hamilton was diagnosed COVID-19 positive. Allowing Russell to appear for Mercedes for that race. Though it was an excellent opportunity, Russell claims it was an ’emotional rollercoaster’.
“Everything that went on that week, the spotlight being shone on me, the constant scrutiny on how I’m performing, the amount of work that has gone in just to get the seat fixed and learn all of their procedures.”
“Working with the engineers getting buttons on the steering wheel, understanding the car – that was a hell of a lot of be going through,” Russell said.
“That was draining just in itself, and obviously the race all looked pretty hunky dory and everything was under control at one point. For it to just all disappear was pretty difficult.”
Also read: George Russell thinks Mercedes will give him a hard time in 2022
Four months of 2021 were brutal emotionally
In 2021, Valtteri Bottas had a crash with Valtteri Bottas at Imola. The controversial day was again something that was not pleasant for Russell.
Race stopped due to a big crash between Valtteri Bottas and George Russell. Both are ok. Just before the crash Lewis Hamilton lost control of the car and broke his front wing. He will bw able to continue once the race restarts.#F1 #ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/2ieGrEEC8o
— Mercedes F1 News – SilverArrows.Net (@SilverArrowsNet) April 18, 2021
“These are the four moments in my three years that stick out to me that were pretty brutal emotionally,” Russell said. “It was just learning how to deal with that. I look back on Bahrain with no frustration or no hard feelings.”
“It’s something that I guess has moulded me into a stronger driver.”
Also read: George Russell makes his feelings clear for Lewis Hamilton and reveals partnership plan
