George Russell is pleased with the ‘good, honest and transparent’ relationship that he has had with Lewis Hamilton in F1 2022.
Coming into the 2022 F1 season, one of the most talked about pairings on the grid was at Mercedes with Hamilton being joined by Russell after the departure of Valtteri Bottas to Alfa Romeo. With the Finn, the team had a relatively calmer time with the two.
Even with Nico Rosberg, it started off on a good note but by the 2016 F1 season, it was an all-out fight between the German and Hamilton. Eventually the title win for the former had him satisfied and he shocked everyone with his retirement announcement.
For his first full season with Mercedes, Russell was pretty much on pace and eventually managed to beat Hamilton in the drivers’ standings due to his consistent run. The latter did do a lot of development work, but had troubles early on in the year too with the car.
He progressed well and the two worked collectively to eventually put Mercedes in with a chance to beat Ferrari for second in the championship. There is still a lot of work to do but Russell was overall pleased with the partnership with Hamilton in 2022.
While crediting Hamilton, Russell recalled their photo from 2009 which he joked that both would like to be erased. “I think it’s like a realisation for all of us,” he said. “When I think of this now, I think of the photo of Lewis and I from 2009, which we’d probably both appreciate is not shared too much, because we’re both not looking our finest.
“But it’s just unbelievable, firstly, how quickly time flies, and it makes you realise you need to make the most of every single moment. And here we are 13 years later, team-mates on this journey together. And we’ve truly been on this journey together this year, our goals have been clear, we need to work together to get Mercedes back to where they belong.
“And so we’re really pleased that we have such a good, honest, transparent relationship. And we’re here to win. We’re here to fight. And I think it just shows all the efforts that everybody’s been putting in throughout this season,” summed up Russell.
Here’s Mick Schumacher joining Mercedes
Here’s Mercedes on being tough situation already in testing
Here’s George Russell on Mercedes’ progress
Here’s Toto Wolff on 2021 emotions to 2022
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on no attitude change since 2021
Here’s James Vowles describing Mercedes’ 2022 in four words
