George Russell, Williams, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Williams believes Russell is “world champion material”

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In the round-up: Claire Williams says she would be very reluctant to let George Russell leave Williams.

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What they say

Russell is a Mercedes junior driver but Williams is keen to keep him in their team:

We haven’t had any conversation about George potentially leaving the team in the short-term because he’s on a long-term contract with us.

George is, for me, personally I feel that he’s world champion material and why would I want to lose George from our team? I would do everything in my power to keep George Russell at Williams.

My ambition is one day that we will be able to provide George with a car where in steps he can start competing at the top of the midfield and then hopefully compete [for] the podium. that’s going to take time, clearly, but we’ve got to have ambition.

George is a big part of Williams’s future. We made a very clear decision when we brought George in last year why we chose George because we wanted him to be a part of this journey and I hope the end result of that journey is that we give him a good enough car to show his true potential.

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Comment of the day

Is Nigel Mansell right to suggest today’s F1 cars aren’t the real thing?

While I think it is a bit of a ramble on Nigel’s part, there is some truth to it. But for different reasons.

The first, technology was not as advanced back then so you were putting 1500hp on 80’s suspension chassis and brakes, which, like group B rallying, has to be genuinely terrifying. The other part was deregulation which allowed these qualifying trims with ridiculous engine settings.

The first is long gone and cannot be replicated, but not the second. Current drivetrains and chassis could take much more power than what they did in the 80’s I wager. It would be fun to see this happen, but FIA seems to want to go in the opposite direction and regulate everything until we have a spec formula.
@Eljueta

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Williams believes Russell is “world champion material””

  1. Does anyone know why there are so few support races in Hockenheim? When I first heard that F2 was going to skip this venue (despite its central location in Europe), I assumed that the reason for this was an excess of support races. Turns out I couldn’t have been further off the truth …
    But why?

    1. Seems pretty bad doesn’t it.

      I can only imagine that other series didn’t want to commit to appearing at a venue that is doomed to lose F1 after this year so they’d be unlikely to capitalise on future appearances.

      Either that or the organisers are really really bad at their job.

    2. Probably cos after eliminating European F3, GP3 wanted to really stress the point by omitting one of Euro F3s traditional races.
      #Cynical

  2. Didnt Williams also say that Bottas was world championship material as well?

    1. @jaymenon10
      Given that Bottas was barely any faster than a past-his-prime Massa in the same car, I would have found that comment rather hard to believe.

      1. @kingshark

        Thats exactly the point I was trying to make.

        Sure Russel is (unfortunately) wiping the floor with Kubica. At the same time, this is a man who hasn’t been in an open wheel car for 8 years, and for the lack of a better description, has one functioning hand.

        1. Not sure I agree he is championship material, in a better car he would be a handy driver but so probably would Kubica …. my gut feeling tells me Norris has more potential.

    2. Pretty amazing foresight by her as Bottas was leading the championship earlier this season and still ‘swears’ he can achieve it ;)

    3. Maldonado before him and Hulkenberg before him, etc etc. Everyone was Champion material, only Rosberg proved to be championship material from promising young talents.

      Not like Hulkenberg lacks talent or Bottas is not good, but being spectacular is different to WDC.

      On the way there you need to beat Lewis Hamilton and before him you needed to beat Sebastian Vettel.

      1. A: Vettel will do job himself for you anyway
        B: other than Bottas and Rosberg no other driver has had equal material to Lewis…. Rosberg beat him and Bottas’ attempt is in progress so let’s wait and see. Still even a 50% hit-rate is pretty good by my book.

        1. Rosberg could only beat Hamilton when Hamilton’s equal car had serious reliability problems.

  3. I normally don’t support British drivers and often actively root against them, but there’s just something about Russell that makes him so damn likeable.

    1. Norris and Albon are pretty likeable as well.

      1. 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

      2. Not sure why Norris is so liked really. He laughs like a hyena (constantly) and I don’t find him particularly mature or intelligible when he talks in interviews. I don’t know the kid at all otherwise, so what am I missing here?

    2. @kingshark it’s his blue blood, looks like the giant version of george the royal baby.
      Can’t be wch material, too tall.

    3. I am British and obviously support British drivers along with a few non Brits …. but I can’t make up my mind if I like Russell or not, trouble is I can’t say why I’m undecided.

  4. Thanks for the COTD @keithcollantine I will now print it and hang it on my wall :D

    1. Congrats, @eljueta. Great CoTD.

      We expect you to print it on your dot matrix and hang it dangerously on your wall made from leftover poles and rusty wire scavenged from ’87 Stowe catch-fencing.

  5. georgeboole (@)
    24th July 2019, 10:07

    Looks like a nice guy and has skills too. Want him to fight with the rest of the new generation but I guess I ll have to wait until that Mercedes seat becomes available

  6. It indeed is a bit weird that Hockenheim isn’t part of the F2 and F3-campaigns this year despite being a European venue, and a majority of the venues used for these series’ are in Europe.

  7. If I was Mercedes and for some reason had to fill a seat alongside Hamilton I would go with Russel not Ocon

    But lets see what the kid can do when he has proper competition, which I don’t think Kubica is at the moment

    1. @johnmilk – I can see how Mercedes might want to bring in a young driver as they would not disturb their champion (sounds like sarcasm, but is not) and would have a driver onboard for when Hamilton eventually retires or leaves.

      But I do hope that Mercedes don’t go that route. Without a second driver that can challenge Hamilton, we end up with runaways (like this year).

    2. @johnmilk ocon and russel are too tall, no top team would consider either.

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