Toto Wolff declares George Russell ‘ready’ to become F1 champion

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff asserted that George Russell could become the world champion if things go right in 2025.

Toto Wolff declares George Russell ‘ready’ to become F1 champion

George Russell and Toto Wolff (via PlanetF1)

George Russell will lead Mercedes in 2025 following Lewis Hamilton‘s move to Scuderia Ferrari. The 27-year-old has shown promise during his stint at the Silver Arrows so far. Now, team boss Toto Wolff is confident that Russell is ready to take the next step up.

The Austrian billionaire insisted that George Russell was ready to win the Formula 1 world title. However, Wolff emphasized that first Mercedes needs to provide its drivers a car capable of fighting at the front, which is expected to be incredibly tight this year. As Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari also have ambitions for fighting for the title.

George is ready to win the title, but we have to provide him and Kimi with a fairly fast car. 

Toto Wolff told Sky F1
YouTube video

Toto Wolff acknowledged that the ground-effect cars can be quite complicated. Mercedes has struggled with the regulations ever since its introduction in 2022. Wolff confessed that his squad has only managed to find a few ways in extracting the desired results out of its cars during this era.

These cars are very complicated, it is not easy to find the right way to develop them, and so far we have only succeeded in a few cases.

Toto Wolff added

Toto Wolff not ready to ‘speculate’ over title fight

Mercedes has not been in a real fight for the world title since 2021. Though, some expect to see George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in contention for race wins, Toto Wolff made it clear that he was not ready to speculate over his team’s prospects just yet. Rather, the Austrian billionaire was waiting to see how pre-season testing goes for the Silver Arrows

Toto Wolff (via planetf1)
Toto Wolff (via planetf1)

I don’t want to speculate too much about how we are going. We will see how things will go in the tests.

Toto Wolff noted

Certainly, George Russell could become a real threat if Mercedes hits the ground running at the start of the season. However, the Silver Arrows face an uphill task if they want to topple McLaren or Red Bull this year. Fans would be hoping to see an exciting contest in the coming weeks.