George Russell’s rollercoaster 2022 F1 season

Of course George Russell was brilliantly quick in his first season at Mercedes. Just as he’d been brilliantly quick in his Williams – recall that front row in the wet at Spa – and just as he’d been as Lewis Hamilton’s stand-in at Sakhir 2020 when but for a debris puncture he’d have been joining Mercedes 2022 already a GP winner.

This time around at Mercedes he didn’t have a fast car – and he had Hamilton, not Valtteri Bottas, on the other side of the garage. Altogether a tougher gig. But all he had to do was bring his regular game and he knew he’d be competing. Even at Mercedes, there was never any thought of him being overshadowed by Hamilton. He wasn’t recruited as Hamilton’s new support, but as the post-Hamilton plan.

He is a world class driver fully capable of fighting for world titles in a competitive car and at this level drivers just have different mixes of skills, strengths and weaknesses rather than greater or lesser overall ability. Different circumstances can vary the picture. Russell is very clear in what he needs from the car but in his first season with the team hasn’t gone too radical in trying to decode the W13’s problems. Hamilton has – and this helped flatter Russell in the first half of the season.

What Hamilton is remarkable at is pulling a lap time from the bag even after he’s been unable to get the balance he seeks. Russell seems a little less adaptable in that sense. When the car is unpredictable – which it has been in the season’s second half – Hamilton is more able to improvise his way around that. Which has favoured Hamilton in the second half comparison. But in a fully balanced, predictable car they would be closely matched every weekend. Give Russell that and the momentum he can carry without upsetting the car will see him give bewitching performances like at Spa qualifying last year or his pole position in Hungary this year.

Russell seems sometimes to have a clearer focus on what he is trying to achieve in any given situation and is always on the look-out for an opportunist strategy switch. Hamilton tends to be a little more passive in this. Whereas Hamilton might typically say, “This plan’s not working. Better think of something else,” Russell is more likely to say, “Let’s try Plan C. Let’s do it.” It’s just a difference in style more than substance.

He’s not always in the best place on track in that often-crucial dance of the opening few seconds of a race and that’s something he will be acutely aware of – as he’s highly self-critical, rather like Charles Leclerc in that respect. But he’s quick, uncompromising and intelligent.