Russell 'privileged' to partner Hamilton at Mercedes

George Russell has revealed he feels "privileged" to have been placed alongside Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for the upcoming F1 season.

The British driver has been promoted from Williams into the world championship-winning constructor alongside the seven-time world champion, fulfilling the promise shown throughout his career.

Speaking in an interview including GPFans at the end of 2021, Russell said: “Teaming up with Lewis is obviously an incredibly exciting and privileged position to be in.

"To go alongside the best-ever is an amazing opportunity to, again, progress myself as a driver and see how I fare.”

During the previous campaign, Russell and team-mate Nicholas Latifi pushed Williams to its first points finish since Germany 2019 and asked to assess his best races of the year, Russell replied: “There’s maybe two that stick out.

"I'd say Paul Ricard as a race is probably one. Okay, we finished 12th in a race. [We were] really, really fast relative to Tsunoda.

"We caught him and overtook him and it was one of those races, probably the first race of the season that was like, 'we looked bloody good there'.

"If it wasn't for crashing at Imola, I probably would have said Imola.

“I would say, as a whole, both of the Austria weekends were really strong. The qualifyings, both of the laps were excellent.

“The races were good, starts were good. Probably would have scored points in the first Austria.

“Obviously, just missed out, finishing 11th in the second one but that was a period where everything was just coming towards us and everything was going our way.

“I felt great inside of the car. But I would say the two Austrias and Paul Ricard were probably the best.”

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