Seat hunting
The start of the 2024 Formula 1 season, which saw Red Bull and Max Verstappen easily continue the impressive dominance already expressed last year, risks making the driver market 2025 than the race for this year's world champion crown. The shock caused by sensational announcement of Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari at the end of this season it has in fact opened the doors to a possible domino effect. Mercedes has come back from difficult seasons after the 2022 regulation change but even if the black-silver arrows are no longer as successful as they were at the beginning of the hybrid era, the possibility of wearing that suit remains a a very coveted goal for a large part of the gridto.
The Verstappen unknown
To this were then added the internal tensions within the Red Bull team and the rumors of a possible – although still unlikely – farewell to three-time world champion Max Verstappen. He is certainly a party to this debate – albeit in the role of 'simple' spectator George Russell. The Englishman born in '98, who grew up in the Mercedes Academy, is in fact waiting to discover the name of the driver with whom he will share the garage starting next year. In Jeddah, when asked about the 'Verstappen question', #63 explicitly stated that don't be at all scared by the possibility of having to support the Dutch superstar. However, speaking to the official Formula 1 channel, the former Williams representative also revealed that many of his colleagues are interested in becoming Hamilton's heirs in Brackley.
Teamwork
A 'crowding' of applications certified by the numerous messages sent to him and above all to team principal Toto Wolff already during the month of February, after Hamilton's future transfer to Maranello had now been made official. “It's going to be an interesting few months to see what happens – said Russell – but as far as I'm concerned, for the last two years I've been team mates with probably the greatest driver of all time. So I have no worries about who will support me. I want to challenge the best and I believe this is what has happened in the last two years“.
Rain of self-nominations
“I think for any team it is important to have good harmony between the riders – Russell added – because this affects all engineers and the entire team. But in the end the decision is up to Toto [Wolff] and to the board of directors. We have already had many conversations and I have been with Toto often this winter, so seeing some pilots' names pop up on his phone was pretty funny. I also received some phone calls and messages.”. The casting has begunit will probably take a few more months to really understand who will deserve a call to Mercedes for next season.
#Mercedes #Russell #reveals #calls #Wolff
