F1 pundit claims replacing George Russell with Valtteri Bottas has made Mercedes ‘imbalanced’

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been racing together since the 2022 F1 season.

F1 pundit claims replacing George Russell with Valtteri Bottas has made Mercedes ‘imbalanced’

Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Valtteri Bottas (Via IMAGO)

Mercedes showed the exit door to 10-time Grand Prix winner, Valtteri Bottas at the end of the 2021 season and has since brought on board the highly-rated George Russell to partner up with Lewis Hamilton. Russell was quite agitated with his teammate during the Japanese GP weekend and amidst all this, F1 pundit, Peter Windsor has claimed that the arrival of the young Brit has made the German team imbalanced.

Valtteri Bottas joined the Mercedes F1 team back in 2017 and spent five successful years with them until 2021. He and Lewis Hamilton jelled well as a duo for the most part of their time together, but with George Russell being on board Mercedes, Peter Windsor questions whether their current line-up is the best going forward.

YouTube video

While emphasizing the importance of Bottas at Mercedes, he said on his YouTube channel, “The point is this should also be seen in the context of Lewis telling Toto endlessly to keep Valtteri, ‘He’s exactly the right guy’, and [Toto saying] ‘No no, no, we’ve got to have the next generation, George is the next generation, and quicker [etc.]“

FS Video

“I blame a lot of the press for that because a lot of them were saying ‘Oh, you know Valtteri isn’t quick enough, George is quicker’ and, of course, then he won that race. I just come back to my thing of… if you’ve got Lewis, you don’t actually need George. If you’ve got George, you don’t need Lewis. It’s an imbalanced team, always has been, always will be, and that is the problem with it.”

Discover: AlphaTauri refutes rumours that their 2024 challenger will be a clone of RB19,  affirms ‘chassis will be substantially different’

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton won five straight Constructors titles with Mercedes

While Peter Windsor feels that Valtteri Bottas was a crucial cog in the whole Mercedes setup, the latter was also able to amass significant success with the team. Moreover, at times he was able to take the fight to Lewis Hamilton and Windsor thinks their combination suited the Toto Wolff-led team better in comparison to their current line-up.

Lewis Hamilton and Valttero Bottas (Credits: The Independent)
Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas (Credits: The Independent)

To put things into perspective, one can look at the success that Bottas-Hamilton amassed as a driver line-up for the Mercedes F1 team. During their time together they were able to win the Constructors Championship regularly until 2021. Since that year, the Brackley-based team is yet to score a Constructors/Drivers world title.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell recently signed a contract extension with Mercedes that is going to keep both of them with the team until the end of the 2025 season. The duo has got at least two more years together but considering what Windsor said, the next two years are going to be fascinating as to how their pairing would develop.

In case you missed it: