George Russell confident Mercedes will come calling in the future

George Russell

Russell confident Mercedes will come calling in the future

Briton claims team "haven’t invested time and effort into me for nothing"

Ian Parkes & Sam Hall

Thursday 6 August 2020 16:35 Updated: 16:48

George Russell is confident he will eventually get his dream Formula 1 move to Mercedes by claiming the team "haven’t invested time and effort into me for nothing".

Russell has been a part of the Mercedes driver academy since 2017 when he was competing in GP3, going on to take the title in that category that season.

After following up with the F2 crown in 2018, the successes elevated him into F1 with Williams for 2019, with the 22-year-old to now see out a three-year deal before being available from '22.

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Although describing talk as to his plans from that year as "a bit premature", he added: "Like I’ve always said, I'm just going out there and doing my thing, performing to my maximum as I’ve always tried to do in my whole career.

“I’ve still got the full support of everybody at Mercedes. Everything is still as [we] planned back in 2017 when we signed, and the goal was to reach Formula 1 and ultimately, they haven’t invested time and effort into me for nothing.

“I just need to pay that back by doing my job on track and hopefully continuing to improve myself from a relatively good level at the moment where we’re at with Williams and see what that brings us over the next 18 months.”

While Russell has to wait for his chance with Mercedes, he is naturally relishing the chance of one day testing himself against the six-time champion.

"I think first and foremost, to get the chance to be in the dominant team at the moment, Mercedes just seem to get stronger and stronger as the years go by which is incredible," added Russell.

“And obviously to go up against arguably, or probably someone who will go on to become the best driver of all time in F1 statistically, I think every driver would love that opportunity.

“I don’t want to think about things that aren’t going to happen at the moment. I’m just focused in all honesty on this weekend and taking it day by day and race by race. Before we know it, we’ll be in 2022 and let's see what happens then.”

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