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Slumped disconsolately against a grassy bank at Imola while marshals shepherded his damaged Williams off the track, George Russell could not believe what he had just done.

Having accumulated a near-spotless record through his Formula 1 career to date, he’d just committed one of the biggest don’ts in racing : shunting behind the Safety Car.

Running 10th and eyeing the prospect of scoring his first F1 point, Russell pushed too hard while trying to get warmth into his tyres before the restart, causing his Williams FW43 to spear left into the wall at the entry to Acque Minerali.

“It was such an amateur mistake,” says Russell. “I felt just pure frustration and annoyance at the error I just made. It was such a schoolboy error.”

The Imola blunder was all the more glaring because of the reputation Russell has built since making his F1 debut at the start of 2019. As part of Mercedes’ junior stable, he theoretically holds the keys to a very long and successful F1 career – provided he can continue to demonstrate growth and improvement.

For while Mercedes is clearly satisfied with its current driver line-up, it needs to maintain a succession plan for when a vacancy arises, and that means keeping young talents such as Russell in play.

Despite the limitations of Williams’ cars in the past two years, Russell has made a name for himself as a future star by regularly outstripping the capabilities of his machinery.

At the time of writing (pre-Abu Dhabi GP), he has only been outqualified once by a team-mate in F1, Valtteri Bottas in the Sakhir GP.

But this seemingly gilded career trajectory has come close to stalling during this most peculiar of seasons, and that’s what makes Russell’s Safety Car imbroglio all the more significant: it was like that moment in any epic story when the protagonist has not only been put through the wringer, they’ve hit rock bottom.

Russell was seen as a key player in F1’s driver market for 2021, given he was the most likely candidate to replace Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes were F1’s champion team to decide change was required.

Mercedes ultimately opted for continuity into 2021 and handed Bottas a one-year extension to his contract.

This meant Williams could announce as early as mid-July that Russell would be staying put, seeing out the third and final year of his existing contract alongside Nicholas Latifi.

It’s said that contracts are made to be broken, though, and Williams was a team in flux as new owners moved in. US investment fund Dorilton Capital acquired the team in September, replacing the Williams family, and commenced a full review – leading to questions over whether this review extended to the already-confirmed driver line-up.

Doubts began to arise over Russell’s future as Sergio Pérez entered the equation.

Having been dropped by Racing Point in favour of Sebastian Vettel, the Mexican veteran – who brings a respectable portfolio of paying sponsors – was scrambling for a seat, and running out of options as both Haas and Alfa Romeo passed. Dorilton was another entity to which Pérez’s management paid a visit, and the threat that Russell might be ousted to make way for him was very real.

For although Russell had been the quicker of the two Williams drivers, thus holding the stronger performance case, commercially it made less sense to retain him since both Latifi and Pérez bring a substantial budget.

By contrast, Russell has never brought any sponsorship, meaning if Dorilton’s plan for Williams was to earn money quickly (or at least stem its losses), Pérez was the more attractive proposition. Merit vs cash – F1’s very own scales of justice.

In its pomp, Williams would have taken the former, no question, but this august team’s resolution has wavered in recent years.

In 2012 it paired Pastor Maldonado with Bruno Senna, both paying drivers, and, while Maldonado scored that memorable win in Spain, the overall experience was such that Williams took on the more promising Bottas for the following season.

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff had a hand in proceedings then, as a Williams shareholder with a parallel involvement in Bottas’s management group, and he sought to intervene once again over Russell.

After a curious non-denial denial by Williams’ acting team principal Simon Roberts (who said, during a press conference, “I’m not going to say anything about either of our drivers. There’s so much speculation around, I don’t want to inadvertently fuel it”) Wolff made direct contact with the new owners to establish the lay of the land.

There is a powerful lever Wolff can pull – he sets the commercial terms of the team’s engine supply – and yet he appeared to have been directed politely but firmly to mind his own business, saying afterwards, “There is a financial reality that I cannot judge at all. It’s absolutely the discretion of the new owners and Simon to decide what they want to do going forward. It’s a political decision and a commercial decision. We have to respect the independence of Williams and their decision-making process.”

Russell remained defiant, saying the speculation had “been fed by the Pérez camp” to “grid, potentially Red Bull”, but obviously wanted clarity about his future as swiftly as possible.

Five days later Williams, belatedly perhaps, damped out the flames of speculation by confirming his position was safe.

As relaxed as Russell has been in public, he acknowledges this was an unpleasant period. “It’s never nice to hear any speculation that your job is potentially up for grabs,” he says. “But I was confident in what I could perform, and ultimately I had to do the talking on track.”

So just how under threat was he? Pérez says there were “some talks, but nothing more than that”, while Russell’s camp was always confident internally that the speculation would pass.

The interpretation that it was largely a kite-flying pressure on other teams further down the exercise by Team Pérez to exercise pressure elsewhere is probably correct.

The commitment to Russell is an important statement from Dorilton about the direction in which it wants to take Williams.

It could easily have taken the money but recognised the importance of keeping faith in Russell.

Pérez would have done a perfectly respectable job banking whatever points became available but is unlikely, after over a decade in F1, to develop further into a grand prix winner.

Russell’s star quality comes with Mercedes’ seal of approval and his contribution to Williams has already been huge, acting as a beacon of positivity through a disastrous 2019 season, and helping its progression towards the midfield this year.

All he was missing were some points.

Ever since his appointment in late 2018, Russell has been seen as a powerful statement that Williams wants the best young talent in at least one of its cars.

In private, senior figures connected to the team have lamented its dalliances with pay drivers through the past decade, feeling this has contributed towards the team’s downturn.

Dorilton’s decision to retain Russell appears to confirm the wider message from the team that the new owners are in for the long term and are prepared to invest to restore Williams to frontrunning status.

While grand prix racing began as a sport for wealthy individuals, and remains an arena in which entrants can attain great riches, the modern F1 brand is built on the promise of the best drivers racing the fastest cars.

Three sons of billionaires are set to be on the grid next year – Latifi, Lance Stroll, and Nikita Mazepin, who has joined Haas – so for Russell to have been cast out in favour of those buying their way in would do little to bolster the case for F1 being a meritocracy.

Mercedes is understandably keen to maintain the successful, apolitical and un-rancorous partnership between Hamilton and Bottas in its works team, and sometimes that has meant making difficult decisions regarding its junior drivers.

Esteban Ocon found that out the hard way in 2018, when Lawrence Stroll’s buy-out of Force India left him without a seat there, and an option at Renault closed when it hired Daniel Ricciardo instead.

A year as Mercedes’ in-house sim jockey followed and, although Ocon returned in 2020 with Renault, he has taken time to get back up to speed. “That’s how F1 is,” says Ocon when asked to reflect on the similarity of his circumstances with Russell’s. “It can be cruel sometimes.”

It was crucial for Russell’s development that he avoided a similar fate to Ocon of a year on the sidelines, followed – assuming he found another seat – by a year of struggling to regain momentum.

Mercedes, which has overseen his career progression since his F3 days, recognises this.

Russell would not have been left on the shelf. “He would have been a very strong reserve with us,” says Wolff, “and we would have found an additional programme for him. I’m happy they decided in favour of him. He deserves it, his performances are outstanding.”

Staying in F1 ensures Russell remains on a trajectory to one day land a full-time Mercedes seat, and 2021 will be the year to stake his claim – subject to two important caveats.

If Williams can continue its recent upswing and get into the thick of the midfield, the opportunity will be there for Russell to prove why he should get another shot at the front of the grid when Bottas comes to the end of his contract.

But Russell needs to not fluff it when such opportunities to shine arise.

That’s why, as he sat at the side of the track at Imola, staring at his wrecked Williams and shooing away an enquiring marshal, Russell felt further away than ever from being an F1 frontrunner.

The enormity of the blunder was not lost on him.

“I’ll never forget this day, this mistake,” Russell wrote on Instagram following the crash. “I’ll learn from it, be stronger for it. I’m so sorry, to the whole team. No excuses.” He also wrote a letter to the Williams team apologising for squandering its best chance of points for some time.

To teams running young-driver programmes, how one of their charges responds to moments such as this is every bit as important as positive on-track performance data.

The likes of Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost racked up multiple championships not only through being blisteringly quick behind the wheel, but also through galvanising their entire teams to do their best work.

It’s a measure of the respect Russell already commands that so many of his peers, and experienced F1 figures, reached out via social media to put a figurative arm around his shoulder. “It will take some time to forget it, but what you do is mega, keep pushing,” wrote ex-Haas driver Romain Grosjean.

“Brutal yes mate, though you’ll be better for it,” said Mark Webber. “All part of the polishing and continuing to lift the bar.”

“Small blip in a long career ahead of you in F1,” wrote David Coulthard. “Don’t worry about it and keep showing us what you’re made of.”

Hamilton also composed a thoughtful, encouraging and widely shared note, and is happy to explain why. “It was just important,” Lewis says. “Looking at those that are in the early phases of their F1 career, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to have experiences like that. I just wanted to show that it’s OK, and don’t beat yourself up too much.”

The sheer volume of support took Russell slightly by surprise. “It meant a huge amount to me,” he says. “It was very surprising. Race winners, fellow drivers, ex-world champions, even people outside of Formula 1. Everybody knows that we are pushing to the absolute limit.”

Russell has another high-profile fan in the form of double world champion Fernando Alonso, whose early F1 career followed a similar trajectory in that he was part of Renault’s driver-development scheme and placed in a small team – Minardi – for his first season.

Speaking before that blip at Imola, Alonso said, “George is the one that surprises me every weekend. He’s driving the Williams with zero mistakes. I’m really surprised by his natural speed.”

“It’s very difficult, especially for us in the position we are when we are near the back of a grid, to really show what I can do,” adds Russell, speaking before his Sakhir cameo for Mercedes. “I am obviously point-less at the moment in my 18 months to two years in F1, and to the outside viewers, it can be hard to recognise what a driver is doing is very difficult. So, to have the support of the likes of Fernando means a huge amount.”

Alonso’s success is proof that life at a backmarker team and the ensuing challenges can be a good formative experience in F1. Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson hopes Russell will ultimately look back fondly on the challenges of that first season in 2019, and notes Russell’s development since then.

“He’s exceptionally good,” Robson says. “He has stepped up. The car’s helped him a lot over the last year, but even so, I think he was very good at making the most of the situation last year. I think in some of that adversity, he probably learned. Hopefully he’ll look back in five or 10 years’ time and think that last year was actually very valuable, miserable though it was at times. He is really valuable. He’s got the confidence, and now experience, to really guide us. He’s got a lot more to learn, but has stepped up. He is a genuine talent and a massive asset to the team.”

Russell is growing into the complete package – but could he one day be the heir to Lewis Hamilton’s throne as both Great Britain’s and Mercedes’ foremost F1 star? The seven-time world champion sees no reason why not.

“What he’s been able to do is similar to if you look at Alonso,” Hamilton says. “A lot of the drivers coming in to one of the teams that are further back, having an opportunity to grow and improve and lead a team and make mistakes. I think this year, it’s just been great how he’s handled everything and what he’s done with that car, to put it into Q2 quite often, and really delivering great results. I’m really impressed with his racecraft and how he’s growing, and I really think he is the future. There are several drivers that are the future of this sport, but he’s one of them and I’m really excited to see his progression. I’ve no doubt that he has the potential to be a future champion.”

High praise indeed – but not praise Russell is willing to let go to his head.

For all the hype that may be building around him, he wants to remain grounded and focus on delivering on-track instead of dwelling on his future or the added pressure of following in such esteemed footsteps.

“I obviously really appreciate these comments, without a shadow of a doubt – but it’s almost background noise,” he says. “I know I have to continue to perform week in, week out. As fantastic as it is getting a pat on the back and praise from these guys, I’ve got to back that up with the job that I do on-track.

As reigning world champion Max Verstappen closed in on the silver Mercedes and lined up a move early in this May’s Spanish Grand Prix, the outcome seemed preordained.

Throughout Verstappen’s Formula 1 title campaign last season, his duels with fierce rival Lewis Hamilton would typically unfold along familiar lines: Max would make an assertive lunge of the let-me-through-or-we-crash variety and, if Lewis wasn’t accommodating enough, the carbon fibre would fly.

This time it was different.

Verstappen was fighting a much weaker Mercedes in Barcelona, meaning a pass was unlikely to require much heavy lifting. Still, it was a pass he had to make if he wanted to be in contention for the win. Max slung his car up the inside into Turn 1, edging his car further left to leave scant millimetres more than the one-car gap required.

This was a manoeuvre virtually guaranteed to make most drivers – even those from the top drawer – capitulate.

But not George Russell.

With just enough space to keep his car on the outside, Russell chopped across the Red Bull’s nose, protecting the inside for Turn 3 and forcing Verstappen to back out.

It rightly sparked loud claps and cheers in the Mercedes garage.

This season has been an unexpected slog for a team used to leading the pack but here was a high point: Mercedes’ young star had stood up to Max – and won that encounter.

It was further proof Mercedes had made the right decision in promoting Russell at the expense of Valtteri Bottas at the end of last season.

Having completed his apprenticeship at Williams over the previous three years, Russell has taken full opportunity of his big break at Mercedes, dispelling any lingering doubts over his readiness – and, in the process, stamped his claim to be Britain’s next world champion.

FITTING IN STRAIGHT AWAY

One key reason for Russell’s surefooted start at Mercedes is that he required no introductions and very little period of adjustment, having been part of Mercedes’ junior programme since 2017.

While many similar schemes involve hanging around in team kit and little else, from day one Russell was embedded in all the meetings and debriefings, giving him a deep understanding of how the team operated – and what made it such a serial winning operation. “It seems like he has been here forever,” says Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff. “He settled in well – this is to say the least.”

Russell describes his integration into a full-time race seat at Mercedes as “pretty seamless”, but operating procedures have shifted somewhat in the past months as it’s become clear the W13 chassis isn’t a winner yet.

A team accustomed to unlocking a car’s innate performance quickly has had to dig deeper than ever, to understand what’s gone wrong and to develop its way out of what may be a conceptual cul-de-sac. This might have had a dispiriting effect on a driver coming in with the expectation of having a winning car straight away, but Russell has impressed the team with his willingness to join in that effort.

“Seeing it first-hand is inspiring and pushing me to go above and beyond,” Russell says. “With 2,000 people between [the team’s two sites at] Brackley and Brixworth, that passion for winning is immense, and the work that they are putting in at the moment, especially during a relatively tough time for the team, is inspiring.”

During his three seasons at Williams Russell earned a reputation for outperforming his cars, and sometimes even over-reaching in his determination to score points. He was demanding, both of himself and of the team, and ambitious – competitive virtues which helped galvanise Williams as it bumped along the bottom in 2019-20, and impressed the new owners and their appointed team principal Jost Capito last season.

It would have been very easy for a less determined individual to become disillusioned or even to slack off a little and allow the car to take the blame. Instead, insiders say, he approached every race methodically with the intention of maximising the result from it, then equally methodically sifting the experience for ways to improve next time.

Those years of graft set him up well for life at Mercedes as the team faced an unexpected challenge: its answer to the new aerodynamic regulations, the radical ’zeropod’ concept on the W13 car, hasn’t delivered the kind of performance that had served Hamilton and Bottas so well in the five previous years.

Recurring, inconsistent bouncing has forced the team to run W13 at higher than optimal ride-heights which prevent it from attaining the levels of downforce predicted in the windtunnel. It’s left Russell not only struggling to compete for poles and wins, but with deep safety concerns the FIA has since moved to address.

While you would forgive Russell for being disappointed that his long-awaited shot with a frontrunning team has only yielded a handful of podiums (at the time of writing, after the Austrian GP), he was always “quite rational” about what to expect.

“There were no guarantees that we’d have the fastest car with a big regulation change,” he says. “If you go in expecting to win every single race, you’re only going to be disappointed if you don’t. If we’re fighting for P5, then that’s P5; if you’re fighting for the win, you’re fighting for a win. But it doesn’t really matter what position you’re in. My job doesn’t really change as such.”

It’s noteworthy that Russell cites P5.

Up to his retirement at Silverstone in a first-corner clash that was fault-free on his part, Russell hadn’t finished outside the top five despite Mercedes’ well-documented issues.

He was the only driver to score points in every race through the same period, displaying a kind of consistency which moved TV pundits to gleefully exchange the ‘Mr ‘Saturday’ nickname they’ve trotted out time and time again in recent years with ‘Mr Sunday’. Russell has called the streak of top-five finishes a “meaningless stat” and refuses to set any results-based benchmarks by which his first season in silver can be declared a success.

“Everything is always relative,” he says. “Right now, I can’t say I’ll be disappointed if I don’t have a victory.

That’s unfair, because a victory is just totally out of sight. It truly is just focusing on ourselves, as a driver seeing how I can improve, as a team seeing how we can improve. If we continue to do that, then hopefully the bonus is some of these victories.”

As at Williams, the matter of wins being off the table does nothing to alter Russell’s approach: “Obviously if you’re standing on the top step of the podium, you’re going to have a bit more satisfaction. But ultimately, you know within yourself if you’re performing at the highest position possible.”

IS RUSSELL REALLY BEATING HAMILTON?

The natural yardstick for any racing driver is the man across the garage.

As Russell was told by Wolff in the staged chat for the latest series of Drive to Survive (filmed many weeks after he’d already been informed of his Mercedes promotion): “The bad news is you’re driving against Lewis Hamilton.” Russell always made clear he was under no illusions about the challenge that awaited him, going to toe-to-toe with statistically the greatest driver of all time and the man who had inspired so much of his own racing dreams.

But, given Russell’s heroics with Williams and the parallels that could be drawn with Hamilton’s own shot at the big time with McLaren in 2007, when he found himself alongside an established world champion, many observers were salivating at the prospect of conflict. Mercedes’ failure to deliver a competitive enough car has had a dampening effect – battling for fifth and sixth does little to energise the tabloid press – but nevertheless a captive narrative has emerged.

As the early run of races unfolded and Russell, not Hamilton, was the man racking up more points and podiums while Hamilton was the one speaking more frankly and negatively about the car’s issues, it was easy to conclude George was bettering his more experienced team-mate.

Russell finished ahead in seven consecutive races between Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, scoring three podiums to Hamilton’s none in that same period.

It wasn’t an entirely fair reflection of their form through that period, since Safety Cars denied Hamilton better results in both Australia and Miami, as arguably did Kevin Magnussen’s lap-one biff in Spain. And yet it was enough evidence for those out of touch with paddock matters, perhaps with a tendency to appear on breakfast television, to noisily declare that Hamilton was beaten and should consider calling it quits.

This is not how the team reads the situation. Hamilton’s greater experience meant he was the natural candidate to evaluate some of Mercedes’ more radical setup experiments as it fast-tracked its efforts to understand W13’s behaviour.

These were necessary but not always successful in terms of extracting laptime, moving Lewis to declare after the Canadian Grand Prix: “Maybe in the second half of the season, George can do the experiments!”

1996 world champion Damon Hill hails Russell as being “so dependable and consistent” through the early part of this year, but agrees it’s far too early to draw unequivocal conclusions about who is faster. “Obviously his qualifying performances have put Lewis a little in the shade,” Hill says. “But I think we can put some of that down to Lewis attempting to do things that have interrupted the flow.”

Russell accepts it has been “a unique season” for Mercedes in how it has approached its setup work, forcing him and Hamilton to do “purposefully opposite things and come to the middle from there”.

As such there have been very few occasions where the two drivers have been properly comparable, running closely on track and on the same tyres.

But the Canadian Grand Prix provided some useful insight.

The late Safety Car left Hamilton and Russell third and fourth with only a one-lap difference in tyre life, yet Hamilton was able to peel away at rate of half a second per lap, ultimately finishing five seconds up the road.

This is not the performance of a defeated man on his way out.

“Things seemingly go for you or seemingly go against you,” says Russell. “I had quite a good run, those first eight races were pretty good.” He accepts Canada and Silverstone were not only “a bit more tricky” on his side of the garage, but says they proved “just how fast Lewis is”.

George isn’t complacent about the force he races alongside every weekend; write off Lewis Hamilton at your peril…

IT’S ALL PART OF THE PLAN FOR MERCEDES

Contrary to some of the more lunatic fringe opinions in circulation, Russell’s transfer to Mercedes was never about beating Hamilton from the off – or about destabilising him in the hope of driving down his contractual demands. It was part of a long-term plan to have a suitable successor in place when Hamilton, now 37, decides to hang up his helmet.

At times last year Hamilton spoke openly about seeing no reason for Mercedes to split him up with long-serving team-mate Valtteri Bottas after five years. But now Lewis calls Russell “the right choice for the team” and takes pride in wanting to “be a little of part of helping him progress.” “I definitely see that he’s got so much potential in him,” Hamilton adds.

The respect is mutual.

Even after years of watching from the sidelines, being on the other side of the garage has enabled Russell to develop an even greater appreciation of how the seven-times champion operates. “So many people just think he turns up at the last minute and just jumps in the car and lets his talent do the talking, but that’s far from the case,” Russell says.

“Lewis works so hard. The way he works with the engineers, I’ve been very fortunate to see how he operates and the way he motivates the team, trying to get every single last millisecond out of the car. I’ve quite enjoyed just being able to watch how he does his thing.”

Observing Hamilton’s methodology hasn’t tempted Russell to change his own approach – he dismisses the idea as “a copy/paste sort of thing” – but his determination and resilience has impressed a technical team which is itself under immense pressure to find solutions quickly.

“What’s been interesting working with George is just to see the development of his understanding of the car, being able to work with the engineers, to explain what his issues are and pick up on the small differences,” says Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott. “Not only is he quick, he’s also bright as well.”

At Williams, Russell quickly developed a reputation for being forthright in the best possible way with his feedback, and not letting any emotions, positive or negative, cloud his thinking.

It’s a rationality which has carried through to life at Mercedes. “Whether George is eighth or second, the debriefing wouldn’t change,” says Wolff. “He’s still very logical, trying to find solutions. There is not too much emotion in that. And that’s great. He’s on a very great trajectory and a great level.”

It may seem premature to anoint George Russell as Britain’s next Formula 1 world champion when – with the important “at the time of writing” caveat – he has yet to win a grand prix.

But we are in the hinterlands of a new era, one in which the majority of Lewis Hamilton’s on-track achievements lie behind him and the prospect of him giving way to a driver with more runway ahead of them is, if not imminent, not too very far away.

So far Russell has done everything that could be expected of someone hoping to follow Hamilton’s illustrious trajectory.

He’s earned the respect of his team and, as evidenced by his GPDA director role, the respect of his peers.

Crucially, Russell hasn’t let the shift to Mercedes and first shot with a frontrunning team change his approach – or forced him to wilt under the additional pressure that, no matter how robust his mentality, won’t have been as intense at Williams.

Regardless of Mercedes’ current predicament, to have slotted in as if he belongs there (and so quickly matched up against a driver of Lewis Hamilton’s calibre) – is credit to all the work Russell has done to earn this opportunity – and potentially be the man to succeed Hamilton as Britain’s next world champion. Lewis certainly seems to think so, though naturally he chooses his words carefully. “He’s in the right place for it,” says Hamilton. “I really think that, whether or not I’m here, he has all the qualities to help take this team forwards in the future and lead them to success.”

His time at Williams has meant Russell has always pushed to outperform his machinery, which is helping him now at Mercedes

He might have been helped by Verstappen’s faulty DRS, but Russell showed enormous grit in Barcelona