The possibility of George Russell jumping ship and joining Mercedes seems more likely with each passing day. Russell joined the illustrious team in 2019 and has been their marquee driver since. But he has been driving a Williams that has been the slowest car on the grid for 3 years.

Russell has started 45 races with Williams and scored no points. He has put in some amazing performances to drag his Williams from the last row but could not finish in the points.

Williams engineer Dave Robson has said that Russell’s departure from the team would be painful – “It was fantastic to work with him the first time we put him through the evaluation. It was obvious he had something about him, a really great talent for driving the car.”

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Time and effort put in George Russell by Williams- Robson

According to Alex Kalinaukas of Motorsport.com, if Mercedes offer Russell the opportunity to get behind the wheel of their car, there’s not much Williams will be able to do to change that.

“I think we all put a lot of time and effort into helping him where he needed a little help to guide him and it would be a real shame to lose that without really seeing the benefit in our car.

“Yes, it would be a massive loss, but it’s not necessarily something that I have a lot of influence on. It’s not just his technical contribution to all of this, all the work he does in the simulator and how he leads these designs, but also the way he interacts with everyone and his positivity,” said Robson on the contribution of Russell on the technical side at Williams. (Quotes translated from German using Google)

Although Russell is still waiting to score his first set of points with the team, he has improved a lot. His fast pace in qualifying has earned him the nickname ‘Mr. Saturday’.

“He just kept getting better and better with almost every race. Not so much in terms of driving, that has always been very strong,” said Robson on Russell’s progress with the team.

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Will Mercedes sign Russell in 2022?

Mercedes called on the young Brit to replace Lewis Hamilton when the latter tested positive at Sakhir Grand Prix. Russell delivered immediately as he qualified 2nd and put on an excellent performance on race day.

Valterri Bottas has been struggling this year with Mercedes. If the Finn continues to struggle, Mercedes could go for Russell. What do you think? Will Mercedes replace Bottas with Russell in 2022? Comment below to let us know.