As Christian Horner means that George Russell is perhaps a great match for Purple Bull, Toto Wolff takes the bait.
Fairly whether or not you’d describe Purple Bull’s expertise pool as a humiliation of riches is as much as you, however the works crew and its Faenza-based sister outfit do have numerous drivers at their disposal courtesy of Helmut Marko’s younger driver programme.
Whereas the way forward for Daniel Ricciardo seems bleak, so too does that of Sergio Perez, and whereas Liam Lawson is clearly being lined up for promotion the large query is who’s subsequent in line to get a call-up.
Doing what he does greatest, Horner threw a spanner into the works on the weekend when he hinted at trying outdoors Purple Bull’s driver pool in a bid to current the strongest attainable line-up(s) subsequent season.
Admitting that he has Isack Hadjar and Ayumu Iwasa ‘on the books’, he added, “we’re not afraid to exit of the pool. George Russell is out of contract on the finish of subsequent yr. It could be silly to not take that into consideration.”
Wolff was fast to rise to the bait.
“He’s all the time stirring sh*t up, it’s a part of the sport,” stated the Austrian. “George is a Mercedes driver and has been without end and hopefully shall be without end. Now we have a protracted contract with him.”
Certainly, third within the 2016 F3 Championship, the next yr Russell remained within the collection, although leaving Hitech GP for ART Grand Prix.
Having made his F1 debut with McLaren in late 2015, as a part of hisd prize for profitable the 2014 Autosport BRDC Award, in 2016 Russell carried out simulator work for Mercedes and was recruited to the corporate’s Junior Staff programme a yr later.
F1 checks with Mercedes adopted and later that yr (2017) the teen took half within the FP1 classes in Brazil and Abu Dhabi driving the Mercedes-powered Drive India. A reserve driver for Mercedes in 2018, in 2019 he made his race debut with Williams.
He’s a Mercedes man by means of and thru, and is joined subsequent season by Kimi Antonelli, one other protg of the three-pointed star.
“These two are the longer term,” Wolff insisted. “They’ve been and shall be Mercedes drivers, and due to this fact we’ve got contracts with George and Kimi that go for much longer, which can be very difficult by way of choices, and many others.
“Mercedes has all the time been a strain cooker, however that is the place we stand as a crew at the moment, we wish to go together with these two.”
