George Russell and Lewis Hamilton became teammates at Mercedes in 2022, and for a while the former seemed to be having the upper hand on his more decorated teammate, but not anymore.
The arrival of Russell at Brackley coincided with the launch of the the Formula 1 aero regulations in 2022, that saw a major departure from the previous rules, with the new cars using “ground effect” to generate downforce, and needless to say Mercedes dropped the ball big time with their W13 and the same applied with their 2024 car the W14 which was most recently upgraded since Monaco.
Ever since Russell became a Mercedes driver, he seemed to have a better handle on the difficult cars Mercedes built for him and his teammate.
Russell had a flying start at Mercedes
In 2022 Hamilton outqualified Russell 12 times in 22 races, but the younger Briton finished ahead in that year’s Championship also winning his maiden F1 race in Sao Paulo also taking two pole positions. Hamilton had zero poles and zero wins in comparison.
George didn’t beat Lewis in qualifying but gave him a run for his money, a respectable achievement given he was up against the best qualifier of all time, statistically at least, a 103-time pole sitter and in a new team.
As for 2023, and out of the eight races already contested, the Mercedes drivers are even in qualifying, while Hamilton is currently fourth (102 points) in the Drivers’ Standings, Russell sixth (65 points).
And while Hamilton has cut a disenchanted figure ever since the severity of the situation at Mercedes became clear back in 2022, he has been a different driver ever since he jumped into the revised W14 in Monaco.
Hamilton has beaten Russell 3-0 in in qualifying across Monaco, Spain, and Canada, also outracing him. Russell on the other hand has been error prone recently, crashing into Sergio Perez in Monaco and slapped with a penalty, not to mention hitting the wall in Canada trying to keep up with his teammate and Fernando Alonso, hitting the kerb too hard at Turn 9.
However, Russell has not been able to keep up with Hamilton ever since the upgraded Mercedes was unleashed, so why is that? Has he dropped the ball? Far from it, it’s just that the Lewis of old has re-emerged.
When Russell came to Mercedes, he was used to driving the sh!tboxes Williams built for him, and while the 2022 Mercedes was also a sh!tbox – in Mercedes standards that is – it was the best car he has driven up to that point in his career.
As for Lewis, who was used to driving the monsters Mercedes built between 2014 and 2021, the W13 was a bandwagon in comparison, and he was in a different phase of his career compared to his younger teammate. He had done it all, most wins, most poles, tied with Michael Schumacher on Titles…
George in the other hand was hungry for success, and itching to prove himself to Mercedes and against his seven-time F1 Champion teammate and could deal with a car that – despite being a disaster – had more downforce than his previous cars at Williams.
Mercedes did not listen to Lewis
You could see the same situation at Ferrari in 2019, when Charles Leclerc joined a burnt out Sebastian Vettel from Alfa Romeo and starting outperforming him almost immediately, the only difference being: Seb never came back, Lewis apparently did.
You have to understand that in 2022 and 2023, what Mercedes did made Lewis feel like he was slapped in the face. He was coming out of 2021 bruised after losing the Title to Max Verstappen, and instead of getting his revenge in 2022, he got to bounce around the grid in the “porpoising” W13.
In 2023, Mercedes went against all Lewis’ feedback, stubbornly sticking to their slim sidepod concept which turned out to be the wrong decision. Slap #2; and while he is one of the greatest F1 drivers that ever existed, Lewis is human after all, and that killed his motivation.
Mercedes admitted they were wrong, bringing back James Allison to run the technical team on a day-to-day basis, while sidelining Mike Elliott, the man behind the dreaded “zeropod” concept, and soon produced a B-Spec W14 with normal sidepods.
Now Lewis cannot hide behind the car, the team gave him what he wanted, and he has to deliver, so now he has set out on validating his opinion to Mercedes, and we all now how he performs when he smells blood.
So in closing the Hamilton of old is back and while Russell by no means dropped back, but he now has to deal with a tougher teammate, meaning he has to push more, and errors are the byproduct.
George has now realized the driver he raced against in 2022 and early 2023 was not the real Lewis, he met the real Lewis Hamilton just a few races back.