George versus Lewis

So George Russell is joining Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes-AMG Petronas for 2022, and if this news comes as any kind of surprise to you, you are likely just to have returned from holiday on a planet in the outer solar system.

It is of course exactly what Russell deserves. Ever since his performance in the Sakhir Grand Prix when in a car he hadn’t driven and didn’t fit, he made Valtteri Bottas look no more or less ordinary than does Lewis Hamilton on every other race weekend, we knew he was far more than ‘Mr Saturday’. He is the real deal and we all know it.

And while I understand Lewis Hamilton is not best pleased by the news in private, in public he is bound to be entirely supportive of the idea. He may not like it much, but he will absolutely understand that Mercedes has to look to its future, a future in which no one expects Lewis to take part for more than another couple of years.