When George Russell signed for Mercedes after three seasons toiling away for Williams, he would have hoped to enjoy more frequent success by the midpoint of his third season with the team than he has.
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.
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