Russell confident of following Leclerc's path in F1

George Russell believes his underwhelming Formula 1 bow with Williams will not count against him in the future, pointing out the similar career arcs for himself and Charles Leclerc.

Russell won GP3 and Formula 2 as a rookie, a year after Leclerc had done the same in each category.

Leclerc went on to debut in F1 with Sauber before joining Ferrari in 2019, ending the season with two race wins and a season-leading seven pole positions.

Like Leclerc, Russell debuted with a partner of his parent team – Williams taking on the Mercedes junior – but the Briton ended 2019 as the only driver in F1 without a point to his name and will remain on the team for 2020, with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas still in situ at the Silver Arrows.

Former F2 rivals Alexander Albon and Lando Norris also enjoyed reputation-boosting rookie seasons in F1, each winning Rookie of the Year awards, but Russell does not believe his standing has slipped below opponents he saw off in the junior scene.

Russell told Motorsport Week: "Everybody at Mercedes, and Williams, knows I beat Lando and Alex last year. "I'm on the exact same course as Charles, factually.

"He won GP3, I won GP3, he won F2, I won F2, both in our first seasons, so now that Charles has the most amount of poles, and is winning races, Alex is showing what he's capable of, Lando is doing a decent job, I'm happy for these guys.

"I actually want them to do better as the better they do the better it is for me.

"When my time comes and I'm negotiating or whatever, I can say 'well I've not really been fully able to show what I can do, but I showed what I did last year and the year before, versus these guys, and they're clearly showing what they can do'.

"If they were doing a bad job it probably wouldn't give the same sort of credit to what I did in F2."

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