F1, official: George Russell in a Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton in 2022

The Stuttgart team has announced the promotion from Williams of the 23-year-old Englishman who takes the place of Bottas, who moved to Alfa Romeo. Russell: “I’ll race alongside the greatest rider ever”

Now it’s official, in 2022 George Russell will be Lewis Hamilton’s new teammate at Mercedes. The 23-year-old from England takes the place of Valtteri Bottas, who after 5 seasons leaves the world champion team to move to Alfa Romeo. The announcement was only awaited and it arrived at 11 am on 7 September 2021: the team did not specify the duration of the agreement but the press release reads “from the 2022 season”, an expression that suggests a long relationship between Mercedes and Russell.

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Future Mercedes

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Finally Russell, then. In the orbit of Stuttgart for years, he had always been approached to the second seat of the world champion team, but the team dynamics had always favored the continuity of the Hamilton-Bottas duo, which brought points and titles to the series. Valtteri has always earned renewal from year to year starting from 2017, the season in which he took the place of Nico Rosberg, who surprisingly won the 2016 World Championship, decided not to continue his career as a driver. What has changed? Simply Mercedes – which in the press release did not fail to underline the “fundamental role that Valtteri has played in winning the World Cup from 2017 onwards” – has decided to look to the future, putting one of the best talents of his generation behind the wheel, like those Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon who are the spearheads of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren and Alpine.

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russell’s words

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After receiving the welcome from Lewis Hamilton even before the Dutch GP, George Russell explains in the statement that he feels “excited and humbly honored to join Mercedes next year”, but the young Brit does not forget to thank “the work mates and friends I will leave in Williams”. “I’m excited but I know it will be a tough challenge, my goal will be to repay Toto Wolff’s trust; one of my teammates will be the greatest driver in history, Lewis Hamilton, a reference for me since I was racing in karts, ”Russell further underlined.

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Youth victories

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Russell finally has his big chance in the best moment of his maturity, after three seasons of Formula 1 at Williams, in which he was able to show off despite the lowest historical moment (from a technical point of view) of the decayed Grove team. In the youth series he won everything, the British F4 in 2014, the GP3 in 2017 and the F2 in 2018, the year he became a Mercedes test driver. Toto Wolff gave him the opportunity to grow at Williams from 2019 and he reciprocated his patience with concrete performances, up to this year’s masterpiece, when in Spa, in the wet, he managed to start from the front row and lead 2nd place at home. Certainly it is thanks to the neutralization of the GP behind the Safety Car, but the 9 points taken remain, like the 4 of the eighth place in Hungary.

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That occasion in Sakhir

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The most electrifying moment, however, was in 2020, when Covid stopped Lewis Hamilton for a GP and on that occasion Mercedes decided to replace the world champion with Russell: it happened in the Sakihr GP in Bahrain. The Englishman went wild, losing pole by a whisker compared to Bottas and then the race only due to an unfortunate mistake when changing tires. In everyone’s eyes, however, the spark was lit, the last doubts swept away: George Russell was definitely ready to become a Mercedes starter driver. And certainly even His Majesty Hamilton knows that the period of relative tranquility in the team is over: but this will be another, very interesting, story.

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