George Russell insists that Mercedes have never taken steps to differentiate between himself and their star driver Lewis Hamilton.
Russell made his long awaited move to Mercedes in 2022, after spending three seasons with Williams. Even before his move was made official, the young driver was always tipped to be Lewis Hamilton’s successor at the team.
Hamilton has rewritten history in F1 during his stint in Mercedes. The 37-year old has won six World Titles since joining the Brackley based team from McLaren in 2013. As a result, it’s not a big secret that he holds the bigger star status within the team.
💬 “I’m going up against the greatest driver of all time – I need to show and prove to people that they signed me for a reason.”
Check out @GeorgeRussell63‘s long read for @BritishGQ right here 👇 #GQHype
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 24, 2022
With Russel’s arrival at the German team, many wondered if there would be a change in roles. The 23-year old is an up and coming star and has been labeled as a future World Champion. Hamilton on the other hand is towards the end of his illustrious career.
Others were sure that Hamilton would still be the undisputed number 1 in the team. However, Russell insists that both of them are treated fairly by the team, and there’s no difference whatsoever.
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Strong mutual respect between George Russell and Lewis Hamilton
Russell is sure that Hamilton’s glittering success in F1, does not put him at any disadvantage in terms of his status at the team. The Brit said that no team orders are even discussed between himself and his compatriot.
“We are on a level playing field,” Russell said to the BBC. “There are no team orders, we have equal treatment totally and they trust us to go out there and race fairly.”
The former Williams driver went on to talk about his good relationship with Hamilton. He revealed that the two of them are honest with each other, and have no riffs whatsoever.
Lewis Hamilton accidentally tagged Roscoe as George Russell in his latest Instagram post 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/XPTV5KeDRf
— WTF1 (@wtf1official) August 31, 2021
“We have a very open relationship,” he continued. “I think because we are at very different stages of our careers there is a really strong mutual respect between us. We both recognize our fight isn’t with each other as it may be in some other teams.”
“For us, we both want to win but at the moment we are not in a position to be able to win, so we need to work together and push in the same direction to make sure our car goes faster.”
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