As Christian Horner means that George Russell is perhaps a very good match for Crimson Bull, Toto Wolff takes the bait.
Fairly whether or not you’d describe Crimson Bull’s expertise pool as a humiliation of riches is as much as you, however the works group and its Faenza-based sister outfit do have lots of drivers at their disposal courtesy of Helmut Marko’s younger driver programme.
Whereas the way forward for Daniel Ricciardo seems to be bleak, so too does that of Sergio Perez, and whereas Liam Lawson is clearly being lined up for promotion the massive query is who’s subsequent in line to get a call-up.
Doing what he does finest, Horner threw a spanner into the works on the weekend when he hinted at trying exterior Crimson Bull’s driver pool in a bid to current the strongest attainable line-up(s) subsequent season.
Admitting that he has Isack Hadjar and Ayumu Iwasa ‘on the books’, he added, “we’re not afraid to exit of the pool. George Russell is out of contract on the finish of subsequent yr. It might be silly to not take that into consideration.”
Wolff was fast to rise to the bait.
“He’s at all times stirring sh*t up, it’s a part of the sport,” mentioned the Austrian. “George is a Mercedes driver and has been without end and hopefully can be without end. We now have a protracted contract with him.”
Certainly, third within the 2016 F3 Championship, the next yr Russell remained within the sequence, although leaving Hitech GP for ART Grand Prix.
Having made his F1 debut with McLaren in late 2015, as a part of hisd prize for successful the 2014 Autosport BRDC Award, in 2016 Russell carried out simulator work for Mercedes and was recruited to the corporate’s Junior Group programme a yr later.
F1 assessments with Mercedes adopted and later that yr (2017) the teen took half within the FP1 classes in Brazil and Abu Dhabi driving the Mercedes-powered Power India. A reserve driver for Mercedes in 2018, in 2019 he made his race debut with Williams.
He’s a Mercedes man by means of and thru, and is joined subsequent season by Kimi Antonelli, one other protg of the three-pointed star.
“These two are the longer term,” Wolff insisted. “They’ve been and can be Mercedes drivers, and subsequently we’ve contracts with George and Kimi that go for much longer, which can be very difficult by way of choices, and so on.
“Mercedes has at all times been a stress cooker, however that is the place we stand as a group in the present day, we wish to go together with these two.”
