George Russell had spent three long years waiting for his opportunity to prove he was capable of fighting for world championships in a top team when he joined Mercedes in 2022 – and he made a strong first impression.
Although Mercedes were never in contention for the title practically from the opening test of last season, Russell managed to out-score his seven-times world champion team mate Lewis Hamilton at the first attempt and even secure his first grand prix victory and the team’s only triumph of the season in Brazil.
The 2023 season was supposed to be when Mercedes turned the table and became regular race winning contenders once more. But not only did that fail to materialise, Russell also had a much more up-and-down season compared to the consistency he showed through his first season as a factory driver.
Russell arrived in the new season appearing to carry over the momentum that he had from the end of 2022 as the opening rounds of the season saw maybe his strongest run of the year. He out-qualified Hamilton in Bahrain but lost position to him at the start and finished five seconds and two places behind him. But in Saudi Arabia, Russell had a very strong showing. He qualified fourth, which became third after Leclerc’s penalty, and was originally promoted onto the podium in third after pushing hard to stay within five seconds of Fernando Alonso in the closing laps on old tyres. Unfortunately for Russell, Alonso’s penalty was reversed, but his performance had not been made to look any worse because of it.
With apparent high confidence coming from Jeddah, Russell was outstanding in Melbourne. He was just a tenth of a second away from beating Max Verstappen to pole position and then muscled his way into the lead past the world champion at the start. When the Safety Car was deployed, he pitted for hard tyres to put himself in what appeared to be an extremely strong position – only for the race to be red-flagged, destroying any advantage he had. He never got to fight back once the race resumed as his power unit failed soon after the restart. He deserved to have been fighting Verstappen for the win, but he ultimately left Australia with nothing.
His Miami weekend was another formidable one. He turned a sixth place start into fourth thanks to a great start and multiple overtakes during the race to finish in fourth, the best result he could have expected behind two Red Bulls and Alonso. He finally…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…