Why George Russell would be a useless poker player...in 0.2 seconds

George Russell, Mercedes, British GP, Britain, 2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

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Why George Russell would be a useless poker player...in 0.2 seconds

The Brit has a signature move

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Sunday 10 August 2025 10:57 Updated: 11:04

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George Russell earns something in the region of $15m a year. If he wants to keep that in his bank account, he probably shouldn't get involved in any extracurriculars in Vegas in November.

What's remarkable isn't that he has a facial expression specifically for when he's about to answer a question that might be a bit tricky, or that he disagrees with the premise of, but how unbelievably consistent it is.

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Kindly Twitter user @essienelli has put together a supercut of the move, which involves pursing his lips and turning his head to the left. Every. Damn. Time.

If you're ever at the poker table with a beanpole dressed entirely in beige, keep an eye out for that look. He's just seen something in his cards that he doesn't like, and Mercedes are going to be paying for your drinks for the rest of the night.

And another thing...

The post is captioned 'what you see 0.2 seconds before georgexplaining:', and...right, since we've got some room to work with here on account of this is the internet and we don't have to carefully measure column inches, we're going to have a word about portmanteaus.

You can't just throw two words sort of together and call it a day. 'Maxplaining' (h/t @scuderiafemboy and others) works because the phrase 'mansplaining' is well ingrained enough in our collective consciousness that a word which looks a lot like that is a slam dunk. Also, the 'x' in Max leads into the 'ex' in 'explaining' very nicely. It rolls off the tongue, and it passes the eye test. Good work!

'Georgexplaining' is a lexical crime that should see someone hauled up in front of whatever the word version of the Hague is. Pronounce that word as written, out loud, now. Notice that you're just saying 'George explaining'? It's a six-lane pile-up of a word.

As for the eye test, take everything above about how 'Maxplaining' looks like a familiar, coherent word and reverse it.

This sort of careless abuse of innocent words is becoming an epidemic on f1twt and beyond, and it has to stop.

Good? Happy? Alright you scamps, get out of here. We'll be conducting random spot checks later.

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