GEORGE RUSSELL INTERVIEW
What he needs to do to stay on course for a seat at the top
Asked why he put himself forward for the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association director’s chair vacated by Indycar-bound Romain Grosjean, George Russell explains that he wants to “look back in 20 years’ time and say I was part of a positive change in Formula 1”. It’s not what you might expect to hear from a 23-year-old grand prix driver, especially one whose general lot during race weekends over the past two seasons has been a scrabble to get into Q2 and frustrated attempts to scrape into the top 10. But it says much about how and where George Russell sees himself, and his level of engagement with F1 and the wider world, that he should take on a responsibility some of his more experienced peers have eschewed – and that he has the confidence to operate as one of the chief public faces of what has become an increasingly vocal body. By dint of their acceptance of Russell in the role, his peers have tacitly but neverthless explicitly underlined the respect he commands, despite his youth and relatively meagre tally of points.
Obviously, Russell enjoys a position of privilege as a Mercedes junior even though he’s driving for a team which has barely troubled the top
10 in recent years. Throughout his two seasons at Williams, he’s shown remarkable presence of mind and a solid work ethic, as well as an everthicker skin when it comes to the frustrations attendant upon driving cars which are some way short of state-of-the-art. He’s also refreshingly open about the strategies he’s adopted to maximise his focus on the job, including minimising his interactions on social media (“It doesn’t bring me anything positive and I’m better without it,” he said in a recent interview with PA), working with a psychologist, and managing his time better.
“I managed to have some nice time off with my family directly after Abu Dhabi – which was needed,” he says. “Obviously at that time things were on a downward slope [in terms of the pandemic] and we had the tier system in place in the UK, so I moved back in with my parents rather than my normal place in London. It was just nice to be able to see them because I hadn’t seen them all year.
“And then after having those few weeks off it was back in training and I moved home again – I’m now living here with my trainer, who has moved in as he did during the first lockdown. So he’s been keeping me on my toes.
“The time has flown by – I was doing a couple of days a week at the Williams factory in Grove, going through simulator preparations, marketing commitments, updating the little bits and bobs we think will help us improve. And then straight into shakedown of the new car and testing it in Bahrain, trying to understand it. So I’m quite glad I had those couple of weeks off after Abu Dhabi!”
Russell says he began working with a psychologist specifically to focus on mental wellbeing during what became a hugely intense 17-round season last year, packed with time shifts and back-to-back events. There will be more of the same over 23 rounds this season, assuming no further cancellations, postponements and rejiggings. To have a public figure pushing back against what’s often been taken as a Formula 1 axiom – that more is more – might
“I had a very long meeting with my engineers, going through race by race: why we were good and why we weren’t”
sound revolutionary but it is simple common sense. A balance has to be struck between doing too much and not enough: managing mental and physical energy levels, and prioritising what’s important, will enable teams and drivers to operate effectively within those boundaries.
This isn’t to say Russell hasn’t spent part of the off-season rigorously analysing the minutiae of his 2020 performance, just that he and the new regime at Williams recognise that efficiency can trump duration.
“I had a very long meeting with my engineers,” he says, “pretty much a full day, going through race by race: if we were strong, if we were weak, why we were good and why we weren’t, and why we decided to go in a certain direction with car setup. Electronics, brake balance, brake migration, engine and differential settings –these are all key factors in the icing on top of the cake, let’s say, of performance. My driving style – there were some races
I was stronger and others weaker, and we were just trying to understand why that was. And we went through our own procedures to see if there’s anything we can do better.
“It was a long, open, honest conversation, me to my engineers, my engineers to me, about how we can be more efficient. And I think that’s the key thing, especially with a 23-race season. Last year it was noticeable, those 17 races were so intense, they went by so quick, people – me included – were tired by the end of the year. So how do we avoid that when we get to the second half of this season and we’ve got big timezone shifts from Canada back-to-back, triple-headers, and then Australia, then Saudi Arabia?
“We’re making sure we’re on top of everything from a physical as well as nutrition perspective, such as getting enough sleep, making sure the work I do with my engineers is efficient and worthwhile. It’s easy to fall into the trap of doing more – more training, more simulator work, more meetings – and sometimes too much is unproductive and only fatiguing. Finding that right balance at the start of the season is tricky because you feel the need to put in the extra effort, but it’s got to be achieved in absolutely the correct manner, where you’re not underdoing it or overdoing it, because you need to be in that sweet spot.”
The key challenge Russell faces this season is to maintain peak performance, maximising the potential of the Williams, in order to serve two intertwined purposes. The team’s new owners are ambitious and want to see it move forwards, regardless of the development restrictions making this something of an interim season, and Russell can and must be at the forefront of making this happen. While servicing that process he must continue to build his credibility as a potential successor at Mercedes to Valtteri Bottas or Lewis Hamilton, both of whom are on one-season contracts with renewal talks in the immediate offing. George can’t waste a single opportunity to put his hand up for one of the most coveted seats in F1.
He has already had a tantalising taste of how that scenario might pan out. Mercedes had two nominated reserve drivers in 2020, Esteban Gutiérrez and Stoffel Vandoorne, though Gutiérrez was no longer eligible for a superlicence. When Hamilton fell victim to COVID-19 ahead of the Sakhir GP, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff chose to negotiate Russell’s temporary release from Williams rather than plug Vandoorne in.
This was a clear sign of Wolff looking strategically to the future, given the contractual situation with Hamilton (then still unresolved). Russell’s substitution job was little short of electrifying, for he qualified but a fraction off Bottas and went on to lead the race, which he would probably have won had Mercedes not blown it with a bizarre operational headfart.
Nevertheless, this being F1, there was a constituency of people – generally those bearing curious grievances against Hamilton – who held this up as evidence that anyone could win a grand prix in a Mercedes. Russell, having muted the subject of F1 on social media, reckons not to have heard any of it, though he can understand why some might nurture such fringe beliefs.
“To be honest, following that event, I think I only had positivity,” he says. “Obviously it opened the debate of car versus driver but, as Toto said, the best drivers get put in the best car and that’s how it’s always been.
“You’re not going to see a poor driver get given the opportunity in the best car on the grid, and I guess people always think success is easy, but they don’t see the work that went into that. They didn’t see the work from me, from the second I got the phone call saying this might be happening, that I gave absolutely every second of the day to try and make sure I was ready for that Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening.
“My engineers and I were at the track daily until getting on for midnight, making sure everything was as well-prepared as possible. Going over absolutely everything. And that’s not what people see – they turn on the TV on a Sunday afternoon and see I rocked up, qualified second, went into the lead and should have won the race.
“I’ve been working my whole life for an opportunity like that. I worked incredibly hard that whole weekend, from the second I had the opportunity, to make sure I took it with both hands and didn’t let it slip away from me.”
Russell might have come away from the Sakhir GP with only ninth place, three points and some useful experience to show for it, but his weekend performance also served to rebuild his stock, which had slipped somewhat at the Emilia-romagna Grand Prix a month earlier when he crashed while trying to keep his tyres warm behind the Safety Car. Not only was this a clumsy-looking blunder for a driver whose self-improvement trajectory had seemed to be relentlessly upward, it cost Williams a potential points finish since he was running 10th at the time.
A mistake like this doesn’t just provoke schadenfreude among the chattering classes of F1, it introduces doubts into the minds of those who matter – the movers and shakers who shape careers. Especially when a driver is in Russell’s position, being a popularly anointed future star but one without much in the way of a competitive barometer in the other car.
“IN 2020 I WAS A BETTER DRIVER, MORE ROUNDED, AND DRIVING BETTER THAN I WAS THE SEASON BEFORE. AND I’M SURE THIS YEAR I’M GOING TO BE BETTER AGAIN. I THINK I’M STILL ON THE UPWARD SLOPE”
“The Mercedes experience helped drastically,” says Russell. “Just psychologically, being able to tell myself, ‘You can do this.’
“I believe in myself, and people say I do a good job, but I guess there was almost an element in my mind, thinking, ‘What if Lewis jumped in a Williams? Would he be in the points every week?’
“The Mercedes experience, above all, just showed me I’m not at my maximum level yet, but I’ve been doing a good job and when I believe I’ve got the most out of the Williams, I probably have. And psychologically that’s very important.
“I think I’m far from my maximum potential. Each year I drive,
I believe I’m the best version of myself, better than the year before. And that’s been happening every year for me, since I’ve been old enough to maturely analyse myself.
“In 2015 I thought I was the best driver and I could go into Formula 1 and conquer the world. I went into 2016 and realised that in 2015 I hadn’t been ready. Same story from 2016 into 2017. And in 2019 I thought I had a good season in F1, I thought I optimised things quite well. But equally, in 2020 I was a better driver, more rounded, and driving better than I was the season before.
“And I’m sure this year I’m going to be better again. I think I’m still on the upward slope.”
He’s going to need to prove that straight away, and carry on proving it, because the political currents are shifting. While Williams continues to be aligned with Mercedes – it receives a discount on engine supply as quid pro quo for running Russell – and is extending that arrangement to use the Mercedes gearbox this season (and rear suspension from next season), rumours persist that new owner Dorilton Capital is considering a switch to Renault, reforming an alliance which was dominant during the 1990s.
Unlikely as this may sound, if it were to happen, Russell’s position at Williams may be less clear-cut – unless he’s already secured promotion to Mercedes. For a driver who sees his future at the front of Formula 1, now is the time to shine even more brightly.