George Russell, Mercedes, Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi, 2021

Russell completes first simulator day as Mercedes race driver

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In the round-up: George Russell has spent his first day as a Mercedes race driver at the team’s Brackley factory in the team’s simulator

In brief

Russell starts work as Mercedes driver

George Russell has spent his first day as a Mercedes works driver at the team’s factory at Brackley doing runs in the team’s simulator.

The former Williams driver has been part of the Mercedes junior driver programme for many years and spent his first three seasons in Formula 1 at Williams before being signed by Mercedes to replace Valtteri Bottas.

In a video posted to social media, Russell announced he had started his first official day with the multiple world championship winning team on Sunday.

“Today was my first official day in Brackley as a Mercedes driver,” Russell said.

“I can’t wait to get started, obviously. I went around and met so many people today, went on the simulator and just preparing as best as possible to kick-start.”

Russell’s new team mate at Mercedes, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, has still yet to make a public comment on whether he will continue to race in Formula 1 this season after losing the world championship title in controversial circumstances in Abu Dhabi.

Redline take double delight in Le Mans 24 Hours Virtual

Redline teams claimed both class wins in LMP and GTE during the second running of the Le Mans 24 Hours Virtual event.

The simracing specialists, who F1 world champion Max Verstappen has been long associated with, took overall victory with the number 70 Realteam Hydrogen Redline car driven by Jeffrey Rietveld, Michal Smidl, Felipe Drugovich and Oliver Rowland. The team led home defending race winners Rebellion GPX Esports, over a minute adrift of the winners. In the GTE class, BMW Team Redline took the win with drivers Enzo Bonito, Lorenzo Colombo, Rudy van Buren and Kevin Siggy.

Verstappen’s 123 Team Redline entry had dominated the early running after taking the lead at the race start. After sitting at the front through the first seven hours of the race, Verstappen lost control of his car over the kerbs of the Ford Chicane, sending him into the barriers and causing critical damage to his car, putting them out of the race.

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Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

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Comment of the day

This weekend’s Caption Competition winner is @hotbottoms:

Kimi Raikkonen, Farewell event, Alfa Romeo, Hinwil, 2021

“Did I miss Pele again?”
Hotbottoms

Thanks to everyone who came up with caption idea this week and a special mention to JackySteeg and Neil who both came up with particularly good captions.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Ads21, Bev, Gabal and Gerdoner!

On this day in motorsport

  • 25 years ago today Damon Hill only managed a single lap in his Arrows in testing at Silverstone, while Gerhard Berger topped a test in Jerez for Benetton

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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12 comments on “Russell completes first simulator day as Mercedes race driver”

  1. Has anyone researched George Russell’s family tree? Any Finn in there? Asking for a friend.

    1. @proesterchen Google gives a family tree for George Russell, but one or two different ones, LOL.
      I only found out recently he has at least one full namesake.

  2. Oram-Jones’ story is incredible. Here I was thinking oh yeah, another has been thinking he had what it takes, but after reading through the article… Damn. The drive and determination he has is so admirable. Some people just have it, doesn’t matter what they apply themselves to, they apply themselves entirely and despite setbacks the success follows. So inspirational.

    1. Thanks for the pointer – it is indeed!
      I bet we’d have heard more of him if he had approached his F1 career the same way as he goes about NFL now.

    2. I made the mistake of opening a Mirror article, only finding out that the mistake was to pre-judge them.
      Great story.

      1. Good to know jff, @skipgamer – saying he was way better than Mazepin and the source of the article didn’t really inspire reading, but it’s indeed a good article, and a great story and that line is him taking on himself.

        I guess him ending up doing another sport at a high level shows how top athletes are just a bit special (once they decide to fully go for it?). It certainly is interesting to ponder the influence of circumstance, luck and opportunity that got him there. Not he got ‘lucky’ to have good coaches etc, and get chances, but that was maybe also because in his NFL career he went for it whenever he saw the chance, perhaps having learned from his motorsport experience.

        PS. I do think that might have been done better in quoting @willwood, making it clearer how that sentence leads into the article, but thanks for including the link, something i didn’t think I would say about a mirror story!

    3. @skipgamer Yeah, great story, very happy for him. Commitment and a bit more, hope it comes good for him.

    4. I also read that quote above @skipgamer and laughed at the “better than Mazepin” bit.
      Then I read what you and others here posted so I thought go on then, I’ll bite.

      Just read the article and what a guy.
      If the family business commitment wasn’t a priority I wonder where he would be?

  3. I hope George was working on his starts. That’s an area he really struggled with at Williams.

  4. I do find it interesting to see what F1 drivers have for their private cars. Considering that most could have almost anything, it’s a little window into their thinking. I can’t help but look at Jenson’s Bronco and think it’s twenty types of wrong. The chassis doesn’t fit the massive wheels it’s been plonked on top of, it looks like it would tip over, or maybe it already has. The soft top wouldn’t do anything in a ‘freak gasoline fight accident’ or a mild breeze.

    Jenson has had some rubbish cars in his time, mostly out of his control (Benetton B201), but he seems to have found something that would actually look better in the ‘One Earth’ livery.

    1. Well since it seems to be up for sale @bernasaurus, maybe Button agrees ;)

  5. The story posted about Max and George’s former karting team mate who is trying to break into the NFL is fascinating for me. My two favourite sports are motor sports and American Football, and I went to Durham University too – so very interesting to read!

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