George Russell has theorised that former team-mate Lewis Hamilton is overcompensating this season in his push to score better Formula 1 results with Ferrari, which he believes is “counterproductive”.
The seven-time World Champion has been struggling with the Scuderia so far this season, with just a single victory, which came in the China Sprint.
Since then, Hamilton has found it hard to adapt to the tricky SF-25, and as a result, sits sixth in the Drivers’ Championship with a modest 79 points, just 16 more than his Mercedes successor, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Hamilton has comparatively struggled over the course of the ground effect era, which began immediately after his gut-wrenching title battle with Max Verstappen in 2021.
In the three seasons they spent as team-mates, Russell outscored Hamilton twice, but was clear in his assessment that he can still produce big performances, and intimated his desire to wrestle his current machine closer to the top is behind his problems.
“I think when you’re a seven-time World Champion, anything less than victory is failure and you’re probably pushing yourself and your team over the top to achieve beyond the potential to try and achieve these great results and potentially counterproductive,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“So, I don’t know. For sure, what I saw last year was that when he was on his A-game, he was a real competitor to me and he was driving amazingly.”
‘Slim’ chances of victory ‘frustrating’ for everyone
Russell cited recent performances as an indicator of Hamilton’s capability to still produce brilliance, and said that he, himelf and other competitors will naturally be frustrated at the present situation, in which McLaren is still the runaway leaders and team to beat.
“We saw it at Silverstone last year, saw it at China this year,” he said. “|You know it’s possible, but for all of us, unless you’re in the orange car [McLaren] at the moment, the chance of victory is slim. and for all of us it’s frustrating.
“It’s frustrating for me, it’s frustrating for Leclerc. Charles is such a great driver as well and hasn’t had a shot at a championship properly, maybe in 2022 slightly, but that’s the nature of this sport.”
Hamilton had to look on as Russell took his first victory of the season in Canada, a race in which he finished sixth, which was compromised early on after hitting a groundhog which damaged his SF-25.
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