George Russell says the departure of Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes is such an enormous change that it’ll “spark quite a lot of motivation” because the crew enters a brand new period.
Hamilton accomplished his ultimate race for Mercedes in Abu Dhabi earlier this month, forward of his transfer to Ferrari in 2025. The swap means Mercedes won’t have Hamilton as a part of its line-up for the primary time since 2012, when it ran Michael Schumacher alongside Nico Rosberg. Russell believes the departure serves as a reminder of what has been achieved, but additionally gives a recent begin.
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“We had a do on Thursday night time [in Abu Dhabi] altogether, trying again on a few of his reminiscences, and I feel as painful as these three years have been, I feel seeing all of those reminiscences as properly reminds the crew that we are able to do it,” Russell stated. “We now have the identical crew as was there throughout Lewis’s glory years.
“And Lewis even stated after the debrief, everybody had their head of their palms after what occurred in qualifying, however he stated ‘Look, let’s stand tall and never overlook of all these pole positions and wins that we’ve had collectively’. I feel it’s been a really good method to end this season.
“It has been a tricky three years, and I feel this alteration for everybody is admittedly going to spark quite a lot of motivation for everybody. And I feel typically change is admittedly a lot wanted.”
Russell stated his personal private classes discovered from Hamilton are much less based mostly on his driving skills and extra the way in which the seven-time world champion has carried himself as considered one of Formulation 1’s main figures.
“To be sincere, simply seeing first hand what a task mannequin he’s,” Russell stated. “I acknowledge from Lewis that we’ve all acquired this platform, and we’ve to make use of it appropriately. That’s turn into much more obvious to me when, with my younger niece and nephews watching TikTok and YouTube and Netflix. I spend a little bit of time with Toto [Wolff]’s son, he and his buddies see Netflix and all of these things.
“And the way you take care of the victories, the way you take care of the losses, you encourage the younger youngsters, and… after I look again to that picture I had of Lewis and I after I was a child, I appeared as much as him, the identical manner as all these youngsters look as much as us. I feel that’s in all probability been the largest life lesson that I’ve discovered from him, that typically, even if you wish to actually specific one thing, there’s a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of individuals watching, and the way in which do you it’s important.”
