“We have always set hard targets,” Toto Wolff’s take on George Russell’s F1 journey and his 2022 campaign with Mercedes
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Toto Wolff and George Russell
George Russell, until the 2021 F1 season was doing his trade at Williams, but with his debut at Mercedes this year, Toto Wolff has indicated that he is pleased with the young Brit.
George Russell scored his and Mercedes’s only victory of 2022, in Brazil, and was also able to score the only pole position of the team in Hungary.
The 24-year-old was in the Mercedes driver academy and it was only after winning the F3 and F2 Championships, that he got a seat at the pinnacle of motor racing with the Wantage-based Williams F1 team.
Moreover, he spent three years at Williams but got the opportunity to drive a Mercedes F1 car in 2020, when Lewis Hamilton was sidelined with an issue.
He instantly impressed in a Mercedes livery back then, and Wolff while dwelling on Russell’s F1 journey and his Grand Prix win of this year, he added, “I thought about it at the end of the race [in Brazil] when he walked in [to our factory] as a 16-year-old, with his suit and his tie and his PowerPoint presentation.”
Toto Wolff believes that George Russell spent an extra year on the Williams F1 Team
George Russell was in his first season with Mercedes this year, but despite this fact, was able to go up against Lewis Hamilton.
Toto Wolff is happy with the progression that Russell has shown so far in his career and while talking about it further, has added, “He is the first of our new junior program that has won a race [with Mercedes].”
“Obviously, Lewis has been there forever and is the most successful of the ones that have graduated from the junior academy. But six years later he is a Grand Prix race winner – [and it’s] deserved.”
“We have always set hard targets. You’ve got to win GP3, you’ve got to win F2, and he did that in his rookie seasons and then, I guess, at Williams, it was the best school he could have had.”
“[It was] maybe a year too long [before moving to Mercedes], but in any case, today the most relevant is that he is a Grand Prix winner and a deserving Grand Prix winner.”
Toto Wolff feels that George Russell could have been a Mercedes driver before 2022, but believes, what matters is that he is now a silver arrows starlet and a deserved Grand Prix winner.
George Russell mesmerized the F1 fanatics with his prolific skills behind the wheel of the W13 this year, and better things are going to be expected of him in 2023.
Would the Briton be able to do a better season in comparison to his 2022’s campaign next year?
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)