George Russell says he was informed about his Formula 1 future prior to last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix amid growing speculation that he will join Mercedes.
Russell has been supported by Mercedes since his junior career and has spent the last three years representing Williams in Formula 1.
Mercedes previously outlined that it was evaluating whether to promote Russell for 2022 or retain Valtteri Bottas, who has driven alongside Lewis Hamilton for the last five seasons.
One piece of the driver market fell into place on Wednesday when Kimi Raikkonen announced that he will be retiring from Formula 1 at the end of the season.
It opens up a vacancy at Alfa Romeo, a team to which Bottas has been repeatedly linked, having expressed his desire to remain in Formula 1.
Russell outlined that he has “no news to announce” but confirmed that “I know where I’ll be driving next year.”
When pushed on when he knew about the development he replied: “Verbally before Spa.
“As I said, I’m not going to sit here and lie and not say the truth.
“The truth is there’s nothing to announce but I’m aware of the situation of where I’ll be racing next year and I was informed just prior to Spa.”
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