Many in the F1 paddock feel that the rumor about George Russell replacing Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes for next year is more or less a fact now. Some have warned that Lewis Hamilton being paired up with a young gun like George Russell will create tensions in the team. Lewis has now spoken about his views on this when addressing the media in Zandvoort as quoted by The Race
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0:00 - Lewis Hamilton’s Opinion About Possible Friction With George Russell As Teammate
2:24 - Fast Feed
Lewis began by explaining how his relationship with George Russell would be if they hypothetically ended up in the same team
“I think it’d be quite good. I honestly think it’d be good. George is an incredibly talented driver, clearly. I would say probably the only highlight from last week [at Spa] was his qualifying lap. It was amazing”
“He’s humble. He’s got a great approach. Being British I imagine probably helps in terms of communication!”
He then spoke about why he has been a vocal supporter of Valtteri Bottas so far
“At the moment I have to be super supportive of the team-mate that I have right now so that’s why I’m always supportive of Valtteri because we have a job to do right now and neither of us can win the team championship alone, we have to do it collectively”
He then accepted that Russell is the future
“But he [Russell] is the future, he’s one of the members of the future of the sport. He’s already shown incredible driving so far. I’m sure it’s going to continue to grow. Where better to do it than a great team like this – or whatever team he goes to”
He was then presented with the question on everyone’s minds – Will their relationship sour as teammates? Hamilton responded by saying
“I don’t really feel like I have anything to prove. If it does turn out that I’ve got a new team-mate, I’m in a different place in my life. I’m excited to see the youngsters coming through. It’s not that I want to lose to a youngster naturally but I’m excited to see the progression because I am a fan of the sport”
He then spoke about the need for respect between the two
“There’ll be things that we learn from one another. It’s important that naturally the respect is always there and communication will be at the core of that”
He summed up his words by explaining why the team structure at Mercedes will ensure harmony
“We’ve got an amazing setting at our team in terms of morale, in terms of processes and how the team put their arms around the two drivers. That’s why we have harmony in our team, and I think we’re so much better prepared than we were in previous years, so it doesn’t really worry me”
“We have learned a lot how we approach things. With someone new, it takes time. But George has already been on the circuit with us”
Fast Feed
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen pointed out that “Everyone is very interested in the banked corners and I have to say, when you do the track walk it looks very special” [F1]
“You don’t really see that a lot on other kind of tracks. It definitely adds something to it. Of course, the last corner… will be easy flat[-out] but Turn 3 gives you more opportunities in terms of what lines you can take”
“It’s a bit more old-school, like Suzuka, so when you make a mistake, you can get punished a bit more even though they changed a few bits with a bit more run-off”, Max surmised
Williams’ Nicholas Latifi feels that “besides [George Russell’s] 'Mr Saturday' tag, there's a lot of things outside of qualifying” [F1]
“Managing little details in the race and a lot of peripheral things he's very, very strong at. It's quite impressive”
“If he does go to Mercedes, we already saw what he was capable of doing last year in Bahrain, so I have no doubts he'll be on the pace straight away”, Latifi stated
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel has suggested that it is difficult to race in very wet conditions as “the [F1] cars have changed. there's significantly more ground effect with the cars and more downforce” [Motorsport]
“We seem to suck more water off the ground. The extreme wet tyres that we had, I remember those made it easier for us to race in very, very wet conditions with a lot of water on the track”
Alpine’s Fernando Alonso added to that by pointing out that “tyres are the biggest thing that changed over the years”
“I think the cars, for whatever reason, or the new aerodynamic rules, they have more spray when you are running behind people, and our tyres are wider now than what they were in 2007”, Alonso surmised
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez expects “Mercedes to be strong again on the straights” [Motorsport Magazin]
“They always have a good car in tracks with banked corners, it looks more stable”, Perez added
Do you think the higher downforce of modern F1 cars makes them undriveable in very wet conditions?
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