After losing out to Lewis Hamilton in 2023, George Russell has bounced back and is once again ahead of the departing seven-time champion at Mercedes.
Russell will likely win the race head-to-head, as he stands at 12-7. In qualifying, he’s ahead 14-5, with Hamilton having a few Q1 eliminations on the year to boot.
Russell’s behind Hamilton on overall points, but there are a couple of reasons for that. In Great Britain, Russell was able to contend with Hamilton directly for the win, but inevitably failed to finish due to water pressure failure. Hamilton thundered to his first victory in three years that afternoon, making himself a winner during a lame duck year with the organization.
Russell also initially beat Hamilton in a pit strategy gamble win in Belgium, but was then disqualified as his Mercedes came in underweight in post-race scrutineering.
Overall, this season’s performances are exactly what the team has needed Russell to do. The soon-to-be departing Hamilton was also always going to be at a disadvantage as there was no reason to design the car around him.
But Russell has taken that edge and is now consistently ahead of perhaps the greatest F1 driver of all time. It’s good preparation for 2025 as Russell will now be the lead driver for the Silver Arrows.
Most importantly, his sense of fashion has dramatically improved.
2025 will be an interesting situation for Russell. Not only will he be paired with Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the wunderkind, but he’ll also be looking for a contract extension. With how F1 Silly Season has shaken out, he’s already in good shape to be signed.
The only current driver we know for certain is a free agent after 2025 is Yuki Tsunoda, who is obviously not going to be a candidate for Mercedes. And Russell would need to fall off dramatically before he starts feeling the pressure from Frederik Vesti or Mick Schumacher in the Mercedes reserve doldrums.
Another pair of teammates that are being split up after the season are Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Like the battle at Mercedes, Ferrari should also be happy at how this battle has turned out.
Leclerc has been ahead of Sainz in points since race two. Their battles are usually pretty close, but Leclerc has been able to win between the duo more times than not.
After Leclerc’s third win of the season at Circuit of the Americas last weekend, there’s even been some discussion of if Leclerc is a dark horse for the championship. After all, he’s only 79 points back of Max Verstappen.
Unless there are a couple of unclassified finishes for Verstappen or Lance Norris, don’t expect Leclerc to make a comeback. Still, he’s going to be a very hard obstacle for Hamilton to overcome next season.
As evidenced by his record against Russell, 39-year-old Hamilton has had an off year. One aspect of his game that has definitely fallen off, whether due to age or mentality at Mercedes, has been his qualifying prowess.
Obviously, the hope in Maranello is that Hamilton has not completely lost his luster and is going to be as consistent as Sainz is going up against Leclerc. But we’ve seen a lot this season that Hamilton is just off if he doesn’t have a car 100% to his liking.
When Hamilton has it, he’s the Lewis of old. When he doesn’t, he’s going to ride around in seventh. Not really hurting, but not really helping either.
That’s not going to be good enough to get that eighth F1 championship. Especially against Leclerc, and of course that’s not counting competitors outside of Ferrari. Fernando Alonso is going to be in an Adrian Newey designed works car come 2026 and will be desperate to win before retirement.
Verstappen, Norris and Oscar Piastri are only going to become better on top of that. The clock is really starting to tick for Hamilton, and it remains to be seen if he can come back and make magic one more time.
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.