- If that went wrong it would do so in a big way, and it would have undermined Russell’s cause within the team.
Instead it could not have been a better supporting argument for Russell being Mercedes’ future. It was the type of aggressive, race-changing move that makes the difference between a driver who gets stuck and a driver who can make something happen.
In an instant Russell has shown he’s capable of something that, for all Bottas’s positive attributes, Mercedes can only really rely on from Hamilton with its current line-up.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said he had not worked out exactly what this race meant for the team’s future, but if we are to extrapolate one weekend into a much wider conclusion (a dangerous exercise) it should be ‘Russell should be the man alongside Hamilton to give Mercedes an even stronger wingman’ or ‘Russell is the future even if it has to be post-Hamilton’.
Craziest race of the year, in a year filled with crazy races.
Russell has been stuck in a Williams, the slowest car on the grid, for two years now, and have never been out-qualified by a teammate. Lewis Hamilton haven't missed a race since 2007. Russell won the golden ticket, to drive a Mercedes, and proved himself worthy. I watched him win F2 back in 2018, but to finally see what he could do in a competitive car in F1 was amazing. I just hope we'll get to see him get a shot at Lewis Hamilton before he retires. That's Lewis Hamilton, a 1-time world champion, with a young George Russell in the background hunting for an autograph.