George Russell: Has Mercedes driver change into F1’s subsequent finest driver after Max Verstappen amid excellent 2025 marketing campaign?

“I feel ready to fight for a championship.”

That was what George Russell, unprompted, instructed the media after claiming a shock victory for Mercedes on the Singapore Grand Prix final weekend.

The main target going into the weekend had been on whether or not Max Verstappen had introduced himself again right into a 2025 title race led by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

However as he appears to do at any time when Mercedes give him a automobile able to difficult his rivals, Russell crashed the social gathering to ship two laps ok for pole place on the Marina Bay Road Circuit, earlier than calmly controlling the race to assert the fifth grand prix victory of his profession.

The win carried added significance for Russell, with it coming on the scene of one of many worst moments of his F1 profession, a crash within the closing levels of the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix when he was working third and attempting to chase down Norris and then-Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz.

Having achieved what he clearly seen as a type of redemption, Russell took the chance to reassert what he believes is his standing within the sport.

“I’m a very different driver today to the one I was a couple of years ago,” the 27-year-old Brit stated. “And I really feel extra full, extra assured. I do know precisely what I must do in given circumstances.

“Of course, I was nervous before the race as you’d expect, but I didn’t feel any additional nerves or any additional pressure. It just felt like another race, and I knew I had a chance to win, and I felt comfortable with that.

“I’ve stated it for some time – I really feel able to struggle for a championship. I really feel able to take it to my subsequent step.”

Contract wait goes on for ‘formidable’ Russell

Whereas Russell has by no means seemed to be wanting confidence, it is comprehensible that he would really feel the necessity to self-promote after what he has been via in 2025.

Russell has carried out at a really excessive stage since becoming a member of Mercedes in 2022, outscoring Lewis Hamilton in two of their three seasons as team-mates earlier than the seven-time world champion left to hitch Ferrari.

This 12 months, put alongside Kimi Antonelli, the Italian teenager who was fast-tracked into the crew after being billed as a generational expertise, Russell has completed forward of his team-mate in any respect 18 grands prix and has outscored the 19-year-old by 237 to 88 factors.

These performances weren’t sufficient to determine Russell as Mercedes chief Toto Wolff’s first selection to guide the crew into 2026’s new technology of guidelines, underneath which many anticipate the Silver Arrows to return to championship competition for the primary time since they received the final of a streak of eight successive constructors’ titles in 2021.

Wolff has as a substitute been targeted on attempting to poach Verstappen from Purple Bull, with Russell telling Sky Sports activities F1 in June that he believed an extension to his contract was being delayed by Mercedes’ pursuit of the Dutchman.

Verstappen asserting in late July that he would stick with Purple Bull till at the least the top of the 2026 season appeared to make sure Russell will stay with Mercedes for at the least yet one more 12 months, however greater than two months later, a deal has but to be carried out.

Wolff instructed Sky Sports activities F1 in Singapore {that a} deal is “super near” to being finalised, and something aside from Mercedes retaining their present line-up in 2026 could be an unlimited shock.

Nonetheless, it felt considerably pointed when Wolff was requested at his post-race press convention in Singapore whether or not he believed Russell had been the perfect driver on the grid this season.

The Austrian replied: “He’s been formidable this year. I haven’t seen mistakes. There were weekends that he himself said, ‘I could have done more, and it wasn’t a good race’.

“However this occurs with any driver. You may see when it simply merges, the automobile being in an ideal house, and the motive force being up to the mark, that turns into a dominant components, and that’s what we have seen right here.

“Contract-wise, good things take a while, it’s about the detail, and it’s not about the big topics.”

Is Russell the perfect of the remaining?

When you’d be laborious pushed to search out anybody within the F1 paddock who would argue anybody aside from Verstappen is at the moment the perfect driver on the grid, it stays up for debate whether or not the hole between him and Russell is sufficiently big to justify the potential unease attributable to the state of affairs.

Not solely has Russell been undermined by his crew’s obvious prioritisation of Verstappen, but it surely additionally stays to be seen how the Dutchman and his camp would match right into a construction at Mercedes that differs from a Purple Bull setup that has been formed round him.

It’s totally tough to check the efficiency of drivers until they’re team-mates, however Russell has loved an identical stage of dominance inside his personal crew this 12 months as Verstappen.

The Dutchman has dropped a number of hints through the season that he believes he would have been dominant within the McLaren that Piastri and Norris received 12 of this 12 months’s first 15 grands prix in.

Russell’s repeated early season feedback that McLaren had one of the dominant vehicles within the sport’s historical past maybe additionally mirrored frustration that he felt having a automobile just like the MCL38 would carry him a maiden world championship.

Three-time W Collection champion and Sky Sports activities F1 pundit Jamie Chadwick, who is aware of Russell nicely having come via the British motorsport ranks on the identical time, believes he has developed right into a “complete driver”.

“I think now he’s able to develop into this driver that can kind of do it all,” Chadwick stated on the newest episode of Sky Sports activities’ The F1 Present. “I think we talk a lot about how Max is that kind of complete driver but I do think George is coming into that.

“There’s this class of racing driver that has bought the power to qualify, race wheel-to-wheel, not crash, carry out underneath stress and there is very, only a few of them in the intervening time, however I might 100 per cent put George up there in that class.”

Whereas it is clear that the carefully matched Piastri and Norris are each gifted, there have been moments throughout their title battle to counsel that neither is anyplace close to a match for Verstappen.

Some would possibly argue that Hamilton or his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc needs to be within the dialog, however on present kind, neither comes near the consistency proven by Russell.

Whereas there appears to be a good likelihood Russell will get the chance in 2026 to show that he is a championship-calibre driver, solely Mercedes pairing the Brit with Verstappen in 2027 would offer a definitive reply to only how good he’s.

F1’s title race now heads again to North America, with america Grand Prix in Austin up first on October 17-19 stay on Sky Sports activities F1. Stream Sky Sports activities with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime