There’s another common denominator beyond Lando Norris on the first two grand prix podiums of 2025: George Russell. He was third in both the Australian and Chinese Grands Prix – and yet, as with Orson Welles in The Third Man, the spotlight has flitted over him but briefly before alighting on other targets.
Principally that’s because he extracted the maximum from his Mercedes in both races without drama. The excitement has been happening elsewhere, both on and off the track.
Pre-season, Russell was largely a tangential figure in other prominent F1 narratives, such as former team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s painstakingly curated first week at Maranello. If anyone was talking about George, it was a short conversation about whether he could cut it as Merc’s team leader – to outsiders that’s a crystal-ball job, and not the most exciting one in F1 – or the prospects of him being blown away by his new team-mate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Oh – and whether George was speaking to Max Verstappen again, or not. Very important, that.
On top of that, the new Mercedes car’s colourway is so wilfully uninteresting that F1 TV only troubles itself to cut to the W16 when it’s sideways, or shedding chunks of its underfloor after an excursion over the kerbs. Predominantly this has been the Merc with Antonelli in the cockpit.
In Melbourne Russell had about as straightforward a race as was possible given the conditions. In the final analysis he benefitted from Oscar Piastri’s grassy moment to finish third from fourth on the grid, but he also drove the decision to pit for intermediates at what turned out to be exactly the right moment – immediately after Piastri went off.
After the race he talked about his immediate fear that he’d made the wrong call: initially the first two sectors were slower on the inters, but the final sector was fast enough to more than ameliorate those losses. Then the rain’s spread brought the rest of the track into line.
Russell emphasised how much effort he’d gone into preparing for all possible eventualities with the pitwall and strategists, given that Mercedes hasn’t always executed perfectly in changeable conditions in recent times. Interesting but not the stuff of TV replays – especially given Antonelli’s harum-scarum journey from 16th to fourth place, which included a spin and a supposedly unsafe release in the pitlane.
“He [Russell] extracts from the car more than the car has at times,” said Wolff after the Australian race. Some may cavil at the proposition of a driver outperforming the car, but this is a theme to which Wolff would return in China. “He makes no mistakes, he’s a true leader in the team and we’re lucky to have him.”
Russell’s problem – in terms of attaining due prominence – is that drama attends Antonelli’s race outings like a Greek chorus. After the whirlwind of Melbourne, the Italian youngster again caught the eye in China even when languishing in the midfield owing to floor damage which hampered car performance. Easing over on Esteban Ocon as the Haas sailed past under DRS, dipping two wheels onto the grass, was guaranteed to make the highlights reel.
It was almost as if Russell hadn’t finished fourth in the sprint race and qualified on the front row for the grand prix. Naturally he lost a place to the faster McLaren of Lando Norris at the start but he built a gap over Verstappen and the two Ferraris as those cars endured various travails over the opening stint.
Crucially, he quickly identified that the outlier strategy of stopping just once was possible – but was conscious of not broadcasting that fact over the team radio.
Still, a car running by itself in third place wasn’t much of a draw for the F1 TV feed, which, as in Melbourne, was feasting on the developing soap opera of Ferrari’s race. As such Russell only entered popular consciousness on the final lap when Norris’s brakes gave out and the Mercedes chased him down.
It was the perfect metaphor for how the season is likely to pan out: Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari leading the chasing pack depending on conditions and track characteristics, but unable to bridge the gap to McLaren without the help of external factors.
“George is a warrior, inside and outside of the car,” said Wolff afterwards.
“You know, I never give 10 out of 10, because I think there is always better – we haven’t seen the perfect race. But considering the circumstances George had today, it is a 10 out of 10 because he extracted the maximum from his tyres, the car, the strategy – it was a brilliant drive.
“All these discussions around Lewis are because he’s the biggest person in the sport – him going to Ferrari, obviously a great story. Kimi coming in as the youngest driver, with a high potential. But little has been said about George.
“I’ve always said that’s not right because he’s one of the top drivers out there. If you wanted me to name three that I consider to be the top, he’s absolutely among those, if not top two. And maybe on his way to number one.”
Still, Wolff was evasive when asked, in the context of this glowing assessment, about the status of Russell’s contract negotiations. His current deal runs out at the end of this season and rumours persist that Wolff is trying to lure Verstappen to Mercedes; Max’s present disenchantment with Red Bull therefore presents an opportunity.
How, then, to decode Wolff’s PR campaign on Russell’s behalf? A smokescreen to conceal the real business of whistling Max out from under Toto’s old nemesis Christian Horner? Or is it exactly what it appears to be: credit where credit is due as the team belatedly turns a corner in the ground-effect era?
