George Russell achieved his lifelong dream of racing for a top Formula One team. The young British driver had one of the most decorated junior careers ever and got his opportunity in the sport in 2019. Although he joined an iconic F1 team in Williams, he could not show his true potential, as the team was on the back of the grid during his time.

But he did manage to pull some amazing performances to guide the team to finish P8 in his final year. Russell was the Mercedes Academy driver and joined the team back as a junior driver in 2017.

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In his latest interview with GQ, Russell mentioned that there was a time in his career when he desperately needed to find a sponsor.

George Russell recalls how he joined the Mercedes F1 team as a junior driver

Russell showed skills behind the wheel at an early age and started his career in karting. In his initial years, his parents funded his racing career and took him to different parts of the country to race in go-karts.

But Russell mentioned when he was 16-years old his father provided him with a piece of unlikely news that altered his junior driving career. The Mercedes driver mentioned his father informed him he won’t be able to fund him anymore.

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” As a kid, you don’t think that it costs money. You just think, ‘Oh, we’re going racing,” said Russell. But his father said if the young driver had to find sponsors,” If not, you won’t be racing in two years,” said George’s father.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said that George approached him and the team in every unique manner.

“Russell came to our headquarters in Brackley in a suit and a tie with a PowerPoint presentation on why he was someone that we should consider for our junior programme,” said Wolff.

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His unique approach worked, and they selected him as one of the Mercedes junior drivers. And since then the young British driver has not looked back and has delivered in F1.

Currently, George is the teammate of 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in a world championship-winning team. It would be interesting to see if he could win his own world championship one day with the team.