George Russell hailed the effect team-mate Lewis Hamilton has had on his impressive first season with Mercedes.
Dubbed 'Mr Saturday' for his eye-catching qualifying results in an uncompetitive Williams car, this season he has morphed into 'Mr Consistency'. Mercedes have not been able to compete with Red Bull and Ferrari for pace, but still he has been a regular sight towards the front of the pack.
Other than his DNF at the British Grand Prix, caught up in a crash that was not his fault, Russell has a remarkable record of having finished in the top five of every race in 2022. That includes seven podiums – four of which have come in the last five races.
Those impressive results have seen him climb to fourth in the drivers' championship, just 16 points behind second-placed Charles Leclerc. Russell also has a 35-point advantage over team-mate Hamilton, but insists he would be nowhere near where he is had it not been for the seven-time world champion's support.
"I feel so fortunate being team-mates with Lewis because it has given me such an opportunity to see his strengths and where I can learn from him and he is definitely very strong in certain areas," he said. "He is always very strong in low-speed corners and under braking, he has always been very strong and it has been interesting to see his approach to certain issues and how he goes about it.
"There is no doubt that I have probably widened that envelope of my driving skills by being his team-mate. There is not really a way to measure whether you are a better driver or not, there are so many factors that go into it."
For Mercedes as a whole, it has been a difficult season. So used to being the ones leading the charge, this year they have been off the pace set by Red Bull and Ferrari on the track, and their remarkable eight-year winning streak in the constructors' championship is soon to come to an end.
Despite the disappointment of that situation, Russell is optimistic for the future and believes the team will soon be in a position to offer him the chance of the race wins he wants. "I think we understand exactly why at circuits like Zandvoort and Budapest why we were competitive, and we understand why at circuits like Monza and Spa we were uncompetitive," he told the F1 website.
"That doesn’t mean that we can solve the issues overnight. But we've got to keep on developing this car and next year will sort of be an evolution of this and I think now we do have a totally clear direction of how to develop the car."
