In 2022, George Russell joined Mercedes and, against expectations, was consistently more competitive than his teammate Lewis Hamilton – even achieving the team’s only victory. However, this year, despite his accumulated experience, the younger of the two Britons struggled to keep up with the seven-time champion, only managing two podium finishes and finishing eighth – Hamilton ended up in third with six podiums.
Former driver Jacques Villeneuve stated that he was surprised by how the season unfolded at Mercedes, but explained to the website PlanetF1.com that Russell had some factors that made his task easier in 2022: ‘It’s surprising. Last year, he joined the team as a rookie. The new guy coming from Williams. All he had to do was beat Lewis, he didn’t have to focus too much on fighting for victories. So it was much easier for him. Lewis had to react to losing a title the previous year and suddenly not being in a car that could easily win. I think that affected him, it took him time to react. And that made George’s life easy’.
Villeneuve believes that the scenario was different for Russell and Hamilton in 2023: ‘This year was a bit the opposite because Lewis realized again that he has to work as he used to at the beginning of his career. And that changed the balance a bit. George entered thinking: “Well, now I’m ahead of Lewis, I can fight, I’m one of the winners.” That also changed his mentality’.
Despite the events of this year, Villeneuve believes that Russell still has what it takes to considerably improve: ‘He is super fast. He was ahead of Lewis a few times this year, he just… wasted a lot of points in Singapore. That was bad’.
