George Russell on what he has learnt the most from Lewis Hamilton so far

George Russell has identified Lewis Hamilton’s motivational skills as the biggest quality he has learned from the seven-time World Champion at Mercedes.

After excelling for Williams in his first three years on the F1 grid, Russell was promoted to Mercedes at the beginning of 2022 and took the team’s only victory of last season, becoming the first team-mate to outscore Hamilton across a full campaign since Nico Rosberg in 2016.

Russell has out-qualified Hamilton at each of the opening three rounds of 2023 in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia, but Hamilton claimed Mercedes’ first podium of the year last time out in Melbourne.

Ahead of the resumption of the season at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Russell says Hamilton’s people skills is among his greatest qualities.

He told Square Mile: “I think he’s a very good people person.

“He’s very good at getting the most out of the people around him, motivating the team. He’s very resilient, he’s always pushing himself further.

“And he has a lot of hobbies as well away from the sport, which I think is really interesting, because it allowed him to take his mind away from the racing and to be in a better head space for when he comes back.

“We’re obviously at very different stages of our career, but I’m definitely taking inspiration from how he conducts himself, how he approaches his racing and how he approaches his life.

“He’s very impressive.”

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Russell arrived at Mercedes at the point their dominant period, in which they claimed seven straight Drivers’ titles and eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships between 2014 and 2021, came to an end.

Although Mercedes remain short of competing for regular victories, Russell sees the opportunity to partner a driver of Hamilton’s stature as an invaluable experience.

“For me, being teammates with Lewis is such a golden opportunity,” he explained.

“Especially now that the car isn’t performing as we want, having him as my teammate has saved me in some regard, because if he had retired or left the sport when I joined the team, and we took this step backwards, people would be pointing the blame towards me!

“But I feel like now I’ve proven my worth and I’ve proven what I’m capable of, so there’s no pressure in that regard.

“I’m out there to do the best job possible and I think that is a very fortunate position to be in.

“I’m not worried about any statistics or making sure that I’m on Lewis’s pace or whatever because I feel like I showed that last year, there’s already been [three] races this year and I qualified ahead [three]  times, and the pace was very close between the two of us in the race.

“What a position to be in to go up against the greatest ever.”