By the halfway point of his third season with Mercedes, George Russell would have liked to be experiencing more regular success than he has following three seasons of grueling work for Williams.
But that is no reflection on Russell’s abilities or efforts as a Mercedes driver. After two lost years struggling to get to grips with F1’s newest regulations, a change of aerodynamic concept for 2024 would hopefully thrust the former champions right back into the fight for wins once more.
As the year has progressed, Mercedes has slowly built themselves back to where they have wanted to be for so long. And Russell has been a major part of why his team are such a force at the front once again.
No matter how fast the W15 has been during the season, Russell has been one of the most impressively consistent drivers in the field over the first half of the year.
He has only failed to reach Q3 once out of 14 attempts – giving him a better record than team mate Lewis Hamilton, both Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr, as well as Sergio Perez. His qualifying record against Hamilton has been especially impressive, currently sitting 10-4 up on his illustrious team mate at the summer break.
Russell was also responsible for earning most of Mercedes’ points early on in the season, out-scoring Hamilton by 33 points to 19 over the first five rounds of the championship.
Although he did not grab headlines with any of his results early on, Russell was quietly getting on with his job, picking up points and ensuring Mercedes was almost always finishing where they deserved to be.
The only standout exception was Miami, where he lost several places on the opening lap of both the sprint race and the grand prix, finishing behind Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda.
As Mercedes started to get to grips with their radically different new car, Russell became more conspicuous at the sharp end of the grid. By the time the team arrived in Canada, Mercedes had begun to extract serious pace from their car thanks to a series of upgrades.
In a thrilling, rain-affected qualifying session, Russell secured his second pole position of his career in remarkable circumstances after setting an identical lap time to Max Verstappen.
Although he couldn’t convert that into victory during a tricky race in changeable conditions, he still took his team’s first podium finish of the season in third after passing Hamilton late on.
He put his Red Bull and McLaren rivals on notice in Spain by charging from fourth on the grid into the lead at turn one in what will likely be the most memorable start of the year, but couldn’t turn that early track position into another podium.
His Austrian Grand Prix weekend was especially strong, however, as he took fourth in the sprint race, then was running around ten seconds off the lead in third late in the grand prix.
Although another podium would certainly have been welcome, he was more than happy to accept the lead when Verstappen and Norris collided and handed him a surprise and long overdue second grand prix victory to end Mercedes’ win drought.
Now that Mercedes were contenders again, Russell would return to pole position at his home grand prix, beating Hamilton by just under two tenths of a second to delight his team and the British fans.
However, any dreams Russell had of a home victory were shattered when he was called in to retire due to a water leak just after half distance, then had to watch as his team mate won instead.
Any hopes of competing for victory for a third successive round in Hungary were crushed when he was eliminated from Q1 on Saturday after his team under-fuelled his car in the mixed conditions. Still, he was able to recover into the points to finish in eighth.
But after that disappointment, he appeared to have entered the summer break in the best possible style by putting in a superb drive at Spa-Francorchamps, backing himself and convincing his team to let him stay out on a one-stop strategy while all of those around him committed to two-stops.
It looked as if Hamilton, who had been leading up to that point, was sure to breeze up to him and deny him victory, but Russell held his nerve and defeated both Hamilton and Oscar Piastri to the chequered flag to take one of the most memorable victories of recent years. However, it would all come to nothing after he was disqualified after the race for his car being underweight.
Two failures to score in both of Hamilton’s victories in Britain and Belgium gave Hamilton a brutal 50-point swing in the championship and the advantage into the break, but Russell deserves to be higher than he is in the standings after his performances so far this season.
Although all the focus is on who his team mate will be next season, Russell probably deserves more respect and recognition for what he is doing for Mercedes right now.
