Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has reaffirmed his desire to retain “natural” team leader George Russell amid speculation that he is a target for Formula 1 rivals Aston Martin.
The British driver took his first win of the year in Canada last weekend, after an impressive drive that saw him retain pole position and holding off the challenge of Max Verstappen.
Russell’s consistency is now one of his biggest hallmarks as a driver, which also sees him sit fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, just 21 points behind Verstappen.
After the race, Russell reiterated his wish to stay with Mercedes, saying that he is “loyal” to the team with the possibility of contract talks commencing soon.
There has been longstanding speculation that the German marque has looked at the possibility of signing Verstappen, which Russell added that he understood given the Dutchman’s calibre.
But Wolff intimated that he is very much on the same page as his driver, and spoke of Russell’s progression since his rise from the junior ranks and how he is keen to begin talks once the fraught schedule quells.
“He’s been so long with us and he’s growing,” he told media including Motorsport Week, “the steps he’s made from that young driver in Williams, then coming to Mercedes at a difficult time, being on par with Lewis [Hamilton], and then since Lewis left being clearly the senior driver in the team, and it comes natural.
“It’s not like there’s some politics. He’s just taken the place that he merits and deserves. How the ambience in the team is great, and we’ve agreed on some kind of timeline when we want to settle these things.
“With triple-header getting out of the way and one race after the other now in June and July, but we’re going to get there.”
‘We know’ Russell can perform, says Wolff
Mercedes’ rise to prominence in F1 came from the development and input of its original drivers, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, who were of course both established drivers, a theme that continued when Hamilton took Schumacher’s place.
But with Hamilton now at Ferrari and rookie driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli taking his place, it appears that Wolff would like a trend of the junior drivers rising through and being the lifeblood of the team.
He placed his faith in Russell and explained that his place with the team is not dependent on whether he will be able to secure any more victories in the immediate future.
“He’s been a Mercedes junior in the same way that Kimi [Antonelli] was since he was 16,” Wolff said, “so it isn’t dependent on whether he wins a race, whether he performs, because we know he can.”
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