Russell prepared for 'ruthless' F1 after Mercedes switch

George Russell has explained how his three years with Williams have helped to deal with the "ruthlessness" of F1 ahead of his maiden season as a Mercedes driver.

The Briton is set to team up with Lewis Hamilton at the Silver Arrows after replacing Valtteri Bottas for the new campaign that sees the sport introduce an effective reset of the regulations.

Russell has been touted to succeed given his time with Williams and the nature of his one-off drive with Mercedes at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.

After helping build Williams from a team struggling for points into the eighth-best outfit in F1, Russell was asked in an end-of-season interview that included GPFans as to what he had learned ahead of the switch.

“I'd say the off-track side of things, dealing with the emotions of disappointments and the ruthlessness of Formula 1," replied Russell.

“When you do have a bad day, everybody's watching, everybody knows.

“You often feel like you let the whole side down when you are the one who makes a mistake, but letting that not cram up inside of you and drain your energy because, ultimately, if I want to win a championship, you need to perform over 23 races.

"You might have a bad race, but you need to bounce back from that.

“Or you might have a bad race mid-season. You can't let that affect the coming races following.

“Almost forget, move on, and just power through to the next race because memories live short in Formula 1. Equally, you need that personally just to try and achieve the maximum.”

Whether Russell will partner with Hamilton is still open to speculation as there are as yet no guarantees the seven-time champion will return given his unhappiness with how last season ended.

Even team boss Toto Wolff has only been able to express hope Hamilton does come back.

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