The challenge Russell shares with a Mercedes F1 legend

Mercedes is Formula 1’s third most successful team in terms of race wins. It reaches that placing despite having only run 12 drivers in world championship races. That's significant proof of just how intensely successful the manufacturer has been in the two periods it has entered F1 as a works operation – to say nothing of its ultra-successful stints in pre-Second World War grand prix racing and as an engine supplier.

Of those 12 aces, three have been British (including newcomer George Russell’s 2020 one-off). That’s a considerable chunk – while another Briton, Dick Seaman, must be added to the list of British drivers that achieved Silver Arrows success. That moniker returns to action in 2022, with the W13 taking Mercedes’ traditional colours. The all-black livery the team used for the last two years has been removed – its point tremendously well made.

Seaman raced for Mercedes in its most infamous period – winning the 1938 German Grand Prix in front of a packed crowd, giving an uneasy salute in front of assembled Nazi officials. His was the inter-war era. Then, with Mercedes finally permitted to race in top level motorsport by the FIA, came another legendary British racer tightly linked his name with the marque.

Although he wasn’t part of the Mercedes super-team when it entered the F1 world championship for the first time in 1954 – the Stuttgart squad didn’t think he was quite ready at that stage – a central part of Stirling Moss’s story was his single season racing a W196.

The next British F1 star to become a hero of the three-pointed variety is the most famous and most successful of the lot: Lewis Hamilton. Now he has finally confirmed his return to the quest to clinch a record-breaking eighth world title – it should be noted he insists he never considered retirement following his Abu Dhabi heartbreak beyond his usual self-questioning of his continuing ability to fight at the front of the F1 grid – he forms Mercedes’ first all-British F1 line-up.

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Russell is now where he always aimed to be. A Mercedes works driver, primed to race for the best team of the era just gone. And while he is set to race alongside one Mercedes hero in 2022, it’s how his career so far stacks up against Moss’s that contains some fascinating similarities.

Russell's career path to date carries similarities with British hero Moss, who became Fangio's understudy in 1955

Photo by: Motorsport Images

First up, Russell arrives at Mercedes aged 24, with Moss doing likewise at 25 – both on the cusp of their prime, 67 years apart. They also arrived having largely been limited by compromised machinery in their GP careers up to that point. But the really intriguing link between Moss and Russell is their respective team leader. In Hamilton in 2022, Mercedes has statistically F1’s greatest ever racer. In 1955 it had another driver, who is in the debate over the greatest ever full stop (as is Hamilton, of course): Juan Manuel Fangio.  

Moss vowed to learn all he could from El Maestro during their time as team-mates. He knew he had the edge in sportscars – and was even pleased to share a car with Fangio at Le Mans in 1955 as he felt it would be poor form to show up his illustrious team-mate – but in F1 he was the number two.

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Not that there was much in it given Moss’s talent meant he could follow Fangio so closely – to pick up any driving tip he could – they regularly formed a ‘train’ nose-to-tail at the front of the pack. Their proximity used to worry Mercedes team boss Alfred Neubauer, who felt it was hazardous.

"The rate of improvement is going to be massive this year. And we need to make sure we're sharing as much data as possible between each other, working as well as possible with each other" George Russell

Fangio was much more than a team-mate to Moss. Their relationship is described in Moss’s authorised biography, by Robert Edwards, as “an almost spiritual thing” and “fraternal and paternal at the same time”.

So to Hamilton-Russell. What will this Mercedes line-up produce? Of course, comparing drivers from different motorsport eras is ultimately pointless, but in a world currently darkened by the lingering COVID threat and the possibility of another war breaking out at the time of writing, let’s remember that it can be fun too.

At Mercedes’ 2022 launch event last week, Hamilton insisted he wants to see Russell “learn as much as he can, and grow as much as he can” at the team – in response to Autosport asking how he had been working with his new team-mate so far. Russell, when asked if Hamilton had said he would help him on that path directly, stuck to the script.

Russell will seek to learn from Hamilton, just as Moss did from Fangio

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

“Lewis and I have a huge amount of respect for each other,” he says. “I think it has also helped that I was in the engineering meetings five years ago [as a Mercedes junior] – sat at the back listening and learning. That working relationship was already there. And I guess we always knew over time that this was a big possibility that we could be team-mates.

“We've always had a good relationship. In terms of how he will help develop me, I think just being open with one another. We need to prioritise the pace of the car before prioritising each other. Because things aren't going to be quite as clear cut as they were in the past three years, when the regulations have been stable, and things have tailed off.

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“There's only small improvements coming here and there. The rate of improvement is going to be massive this year. And we need to make sure we're sharing as much data as possible between each other, working as well as possible with each other. Because it's in our own interest, to make sure we have the fastest car. And if that time comes, then we can potentially worry about each other but until then it's full focus on making the fastest car possible for each other.”

Right now, although both fondly acknowledge the picture of aspiring racer Russell waiting for Hamilton’s autograph, it’s hard to imagine their team-mate relationship getting anywhere as close to that of Fangio/Moss.

With motorsport’s safety evolutions loosening the bonds between on-track rivals – as evidenced by the aggressive passing that has become common place since Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher shook things up quite so forcefully – a team-mate competition is a very different philosophical challenge these days.

The nature of intra-team relationships has changed considerably since the days of Moss and Fangio, when racing was considered a gentlemanly pursuit

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Plus, we know, because he said it when Mercedes’ 2022 line-up was being scrutinised last summer, that Hamilton would’ve preferred his squad keep Valtteri Bottas on across the garage.

But Hamilton is also keen to point out that he has “learned a lot over the years of how to engage with your team-mate”. This means keeping a steady ship – the stability of the Bottas era versus the flash points against Nico Rosberg.

From Russell’s perspective, even if he won’t admit to it right now, beating Hamilton would be a tremendous achievement. His peers have taken similar scalps when arriving at new teams – Red Bull’s Max Verstappen taking on Daniel Ricciardo, and Charles Leclerc essentially ending the Sebastian Vettel era at Ferrari. They put in no-nonsense passes and even crashed with their then team-mates too…

Given Russell’s maturity and intelligence, it would be wiser to predict he continues to drive with the team in mind early on – particularly with the memory of his slight impetuousness at Imola not even a year old

That is getting quite fair ahead – as is any firm assumption that Mercedes will remain at the front of the grid given the new rules reset finally on show in the first test at Barcelona this week. Indeed given Russell’s maturity and intelligence, it would be wiser to predict he continues to drive with the team in mind early on – particularly with the memory of his slight impetuousness at Imola not even a year old…

Whatever happens when racing finally starts, the Russell/Hamilton contest is set to be one of the stories of the season. And it could yet spark another legendary Mercedes tale.

How Russell fares against Hamilton at Mercedes is set to be one of the stories of the year

Photo by: Mercedes AMG