George Russell: From King's Lynn Karting to Mercedes Title Contender

George Russell is a British racing driver who went from karting in Norfolk to a Mercedes seat in just a few seasons. He won the GP3 Series and the Formula 2 Championship back to back before his Formula One debut, and he has since taken race wins and pole positions for the team. His 2026 season put him in direct contention for the title.

How did George Russell rise through karting and junior formulae?

Russell began karting at seven and won national titles in Britain before becoming CIK-FIA European Champion in 2011. He took the BRDC Formula 4 Championship in 2014, then won the Autosport BRDC Award at seventeen. From there he moved up to European Formula Three with Carlin, and later Hitech GP.

Russell took up karting at the age of seven, following his brother Benjy into the sport. He picked up the number 63 from a kart his brother rented, and his father would deliberately overstate his lap times to push him harder. By 2009 he was MSA British cadet champion and British Open champion, and in 2010 he won the Super One British and Formula Kart Stars British titles in the Rotax Mini Max class.

2011 was his breakout karting year. He moved up to KF3 with the Intrepid team, became CIK-FIA European Champion and won the SKUSA SuperNationals title in the United States. In 2012 he became the first driver to successfully defend the Junior European Championship. He moved to KF1 in 2013 and finished 19th in the CIK-FIA World Championship.

His single-seater debut came in 2014 in the BRDC Formula 4 Championship with Lanan Racing, alongside a Formula Renault 2.0 Alps campaign with Koiranen. He was ahead for most of the F4 campaign, until teammate Arjun Maini moved into the points lead before the Snetterton finale, and Russell won that race to take the title. A Eurocup finale at Jerez brought him a race win for Tech 1, and at seventeen he became the youngest-ever winner of the Autosport BRDC Award.

Rather than a full Eurocup season in 2015, the award took him to European Formula Three with Carlin, a Volkswagen affiliate. He finished sixth overall with one win and three podiums, and he was runner-up in the Rookies' Championship to Charles Leclerc. In 2016 he switched to Hitech GP, a Mercedes affiliate, and finished third behind Lance Stroll and Maximilian Gunther. Mercedes signed him to its driver academy at the end of that season.

Karting titles, two back-to-back feeder championships and a Mercedes career built on pole positions and race wins.

Mercedes Junior Team and the GP3 and Formula 2 titles

Russell's junior progress was expensive. He put the cost of competing at 50K a year and the cost of winning at 200K, and his father spent roughly 1.5m pounds on his career. Mercedes signed only one driver at a time, so Russell prepared a PowerPoint presentation to argue his case. Toto Wolff funded his 2015 season and then set clear targets: win GP3 and Formula 2 before moving up to Formula One.

He joined the Mercedes Junior Team officially in early 2017 and drove for ART Grand Prix that year. He won the GP3 Series as a rookie with four wins and finished 79 points clear of Jack Aitken, clinching the title with two races to go. ART promoted him to its Formula 2 team for 2018, and he won that title too, finishing 68 points ahead of Lando Norris.

The double title made him the fifth rookie champion in the GP2 and Formula 2 category's history and the fourth driver to win the GP3 and GP2 or Formula 2 titles in consecutive seasons. He was also only the second driver to win both titles as a rookie, after Leclerc.

What was Russell's Williams chapter like?

Russell's three years at Williams from 2019 to 2021 were hard, because the car was well off the pace. He scored no points in 2019 and only began to score in 2020, when he stepped in for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. His maiden podium came at the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, a race that was stopped after two laps behind the safety car.

Russell made his Formula One debut at the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, qualifying 19th and finishing 16th. He was partnered by Robert Kubica in 2019 and then by Nicholas Latifi in 2020 and 2021. Williams had finished no worse than fifth in the constructors' standings from 2015 to 2017, so the drop was sharp. He finished 20th in the 2019 Drivers' Championship without a single point, and he said at the time that the car was four seconds off the pace.

The turning point came at Sakhir in 2020. Hamilton had tested positive for Covid-19, so Russell was promoted to the senior Mercedes team. He led most of the race, but a double pit stop caused by a wheel mix-up and a late puncture cost him the win, and he finished ninth. That result brought three points, two for the finish and one for fastest lap, which were his first in Formula One. He finished 18th in the 2020 championship with three points, all scored for Mercedes.

In 2021 Russell collided with Valtteri Bottas at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, a crash that sparked a public row and an apology later on. He scored points at Hungary, which earned him a move to Mercedes for 2022, and he qualified second at Spa in a rain-soaked weekend. Heavy rain forced the race to be stopped early, and that outcome gave him his first podium. He finished 15th in the championship with 16 points to Latifi's seven.

How did Russell's Mercedes career start?

Russell joined Mercedes for 2022 and partnered Lewis Hamilton until the end of 2024. In his first season he took his first pole at Hungary and his first win at Interlagos, and he finished fourth in the championship, 35 points ahead of his teammate.

The team's ground-effect concept was fast in simulation but hard to drive, and the drivers shared testing duties through the early races. Russell built a 34-point lead after nine rounds, which team boss Toto Wolff put down to Hamilton's experiments backfiring. The season also brought Russell's first podium of a full-length race, in Melbourne.

The 2023 season was harder. Russell led the Australian Grand Prix until a red flag and scored a podium at Barcelona, but a record seven pit stops at Zandvoort, a last-lap crash at Singapore and a collision with Hamilton at Lusail hurt his results. He finished eighth, 59 points behind Hamilton. He called his own season a complete disaster, but Mercedes gave him a two-year contract extension.

The 2024 season saw a fundamental change of car concept. The W15 was fast but inconsistent, and Mercedes scored podiums in six consecutive races at midseason. Russell took a pole and podium at Montreal, a second career win at Spielberg, and a pole at Silverstone. His Spa victory was lost to a post-race disqualification. At Las Vegas he took pole and led 49 of 50 laps for his third career win. He finished sixth in the championship, 22 points ahead of Hamilton.

What happened in the 2025 and 2026 seasons?

Russell's 2025 season began with a contract year and a new teammate, Kimi Antonelli, and it ended with fourth place in the championship on 319 points, 169 ahead of Antonelli. He won at Montreal, where he took pole, won and set the fastest lap, and at Singapore, where he took pole and won after Max Verstappen gambled on used soft tyres at the start.

Mercedes reportedly raised his salary to 30m pounds a year after the Singapore win and extended his deal to 2027. The team's focus then shifted to the new regulations, and Russell scored his career-best ninth podium of the year at Las Vegas, where he had to manage steering and tyre problems.

Heading into 2026, Russell took pole by three-tenths of a second over Antonelli in Australia and won after an extended battle with Charles Leclerc. That win gave him the Drivers' Championship lead for the first time in his career. Antonelli then took over the lead, and by Belgium Russell was 50 points behind him after a collision with Hamilton ended his race.

Russell came back at Spielberg, where he converted pole into a dominant second win of the season and took second in the championship back from Hamilton. He finished second at Silverstone after gambling on a safety car, but his title hopes faded again after engine failure at Montreal. He went on to win at Azerbaijan from pole, leading every lap and taking his eighth career win, and he also set the fastest lap to complete his first career grand slam.

How does Russell drive?

Russell is known for smooth inputs, car control and wide exits, and for a qualifying pace that earned him the nickname Mr Saturday. His racing has been described as analytical and situational, and he is widely regarded as one of the cleanest racers on the grid.

Russell prefers smooth inputs and uses the full width of the track to exit corners. Jolyon Palmer noted that his wide exits generated speed, while his precise car control let him survive risky turns. At Williams he outqualified Kubica and Latifi 57 times in 59 meetings. At Mercedes he became the only teammate to beat Hamilton head to head in qualifying during their time together, 39-29.

Karun Chandhok called him one of the cleanest racers in Formula One, and Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have noted his clean racing too. In 2022 he jumped out of his car to check on Zhou Guanyu after a major first-lap crash, even though it ended his own race. Criticism has focused on turning grid positions into results: as a rookie he started lap two behind Kubica 11 times despite his qualifying superiority.

His tyre management has been both praised and criticised. He was praised for it at Williams, overextended tyres in his first seasons at Mercedes, and then earned renewed praise during the 2024 season after strong performances at Spa, Austin and Monaco.

Career summary