George Russell "100 per cent" in same class as Williams champions Mansell, Hill, Jones

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Russell "100 per cent" in same class as Williams champions Mansell, Hill, Jones

Claire Williams has described the British driver as "so special"

Ian Parkes

Friday 24 July 2020 14:08

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Claire Williams has vowed to "move heaven and earth" to ensure George Russell becomes a Formula 1 world champion with her team.

Williams has no doubt Russell has the talent to follow in the footsteps of Williams' former world champions such as Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Alan Jones.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, and asked if Russell was in the same bracket as such renowned names, deputy team principal Williams said: "Yes, 100 per cent, and I would move heaven and earth to make George a world champion at Williams.

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“George is his own person, he has his own personality, but the talent is absolutely there. Combined with the commitment, the dedication and the singular focus he has, I can’t speak highly enough of George. I do consider myself lucky every day that he's in this team.”

Explaining the virtues of a driver that has still yet to score his first point in F1, although the circumstances are obvious given the team's struggles in recent times, Williams added: "George is so special.

"I think he has just matured beyond his years. George is incredibly determined, he knows what he wants, and he knows how to vocalise that, be eloquent in telling the team what he wants, what he needs from us, and he gives it his all.

"He just has that natural inherent ability. He doesn't have to really try a whole lot when he's in the car because he can just do it. It's in him.

"There are lots of drivers like that, but equally there are a lot that aren't, and so we're very lucky, but he's always willing to learn and improve himself. He takes it incredibly hard when he doesn't do what he feels is a good enough job.

"But he always picks himself up, gets back in the car and tries to do a whole lot better the next time. He's never disappointed us, he's always exceeded our expectation, and I'm so pleased we have him in our team. He makes a big difference."

Russell announced ahead of the last race in Hungary that he would be seeing out his contract with Williams and driving for the team in 2021.

Williams has confirmed she was "nervous" at the prospect of losing Russell to Mercedes, with whom he has been a junior driver for a number of years, as she did with Valtteri Bottas in 2017.

"I didn’t obviously want to lose him, but equally, I’m not one of those people who really ever wants to stand in someone’s way when they have got a great opportunity,” said Williams. “I think I proved that with Valtteri when he went to Mercedes a number of years ago.

"But that's not what's happened. I'm not going to go into the detail of the whys and wherefores as to why that's not happened. All I can say is I'm just pleased George is staying with us. We have him for another year because he’s a joy to have around the place.”

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