“In an Ideal World…” – George Russell Opens Up on Facing Growing Red Bull-Ferrari F1 Threat With Lewis Hamilton

George Russell had a good start to 2022 in Bahrain. The Briton has picked up P4 in his first-ever race as a full-time driver in Mercedes. However, the young Brit might just want to have more importance in his new team. This season is about to be very interesting as Ferrari has entered the battle of supremacy with Red Bull and Mercedes. Apart from this, George is concerned about his personal growth at the Brackley-based team.

Talking about this, the new Mercedes recruit conveyed, “In an ideal world, we just want to be battling one another. We don’t want to be battling with the Red Bulls and the Ferraris. So we need to work together and push each other to be able to achieve that.”

“I want to win… obviously. I want to win today. But you give me the choice of winning today and having an average future, or learning today and then 10 years of success – it’s an easy choice.”, the former Williams driver further stated.

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What George Russell means by ‘battling one another’?

Mercedes has always been a home to Lewis Hamilton. The 37-year-old’s bonding with the German team is on another level as they picked up 14 titles together. This record makes Lewis the all-time favorite at Brackley. As the 24-year-old had already started, he might not want to be the ‘second’ favorite as he too wants “to win.”

There has already been an inter-team rivalry at Mercedes before. From 2014 to 2016, Nico battled it out with Lewis to be the best in the sport. After Nico left, Mercedes signed Valtteri Bottas from Williams. Valtteri stayed with the team for five years until he left for Alfa Romeo this season. Bottas played as the ‘wingman’ to Hamilton for almost the whole time.

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This is not just the case for Mercedes. Even Red Bull saw a similar dynamic with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo. Both Max and Daniel battled it out to be the best in the team. Similar to Rosberg and Hamilton, they even crashed against each other in Baku. As of now, Max Verstappen remains the favorite over Sergio Perez. However, at Mercedes, both Brits are quite happy at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see for how long can they keep things this way.