George Russell started his journey in Formula 1 back in 2019 after winning the 2018 Formula 2 Championship. He joined Williams, a team that spent the majority of the time in the back of the grid. This limited his ability to showcase his real talent since he rarely fought for points places.
Regardless, driving in F1 is a valuable experience for any driver. His patience also led to his first-ever podium finish at the Belgian GP in 2021 and his talent was noticed by Mercedes. The Silver Arrows signed in 2022 on a multi-year contract, and the Briton impressed everyone in his first year. At Mercedes, he was tasked with the massive job of matching up with seven-time World Champion teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Debut season with @MercedesAMGF1 complete. We hoped for more but I’m proud that together we achieved my maiden pole, sprint victory and race win. Lots of positives to take away from the year and even more motivation heading into 2023. We’ll be back stronger, I have no doubt. 👊 pic.twitter.com/RHmqyWub5H
— George Russell (@GeorgeRussell63) November 21, 2022
Plenty of people felt that he won’t be able to keep up with Hamilton, but he proved them wrong. Come the end of the season, Russell finished ahead of Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship and was far more consistent than the legendary driver for the most part. Despite finishing ahead of Hamilton, Russell feels that the experience he got from teaming up with him was invaluable.
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George Russell on why values spending time with Lewis Hamilton over Williams
Williams is the team that provided Russell with the gateway into Formula 1. However, as it turns out, he does not value his time with them as much as he values the one season spent with Hamilton.
Russell revealed how he spent a lot of time with Hamilton even in his junior career when they traveled for certain races together. During those travels, they spoke to each other Russell admitted that he learned a lot from Hamilton.
“When I was in Formula 2, I’d often fly with Lewis from some of the races,” he said to GPFans. “And spend time with him in the engineering office. So we naturally had a good relationship anyway.”
George Russell has now finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the last 3 races 👀 pic.twitter.com/Q7VilJe2cJ
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) April 24, 2022
“Seeing how he works with the team has been a really good opportunity for me to learn from someone who has more experience than anyone. You can’t buy experience. It’s maybe making up for the three years where I was trying to lead a team at Williams, when I actually had very little experience.”
Russell finished P4 in the 2022 Drivers’ Standings, with 275 points to his name. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s slow start to the campaign meant that he finished P6, 35 points behind Russell.
