George Russell: Has the Mercedes driver become Formula 1’s second-best driver behind Max Verstappen amid an impressive 2025 campaign? | Formula 1 news

“I feel ready to fight for the championship.”

That’s what George Russell told the media after he delivered a shock win for Mercedes at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend.

The focus over the weekend was on whether Max Verstappen could get himself back into the title race in 2025 with McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at the wheel.

But as he seems to do whenever Mercedes gives him a car capable of challenging his rivals, Russell crashed the party, putting in two good enough laps to take pole position at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, before calmly taking control of the race to claim his fifth career Grand Prix win.

The win carried extra significance for Russell, as it came at one of the worst moments of his Formula 1 career, when he was involved in an accident in the closing stages of the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix while running third and trying to chase down Norris and then-Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz.

Having achieved what he clearly saw as a form of redemption, Russell took the opportunity to reaffirm what he believed was his place in the sport.

“I’m a completely different driver today than I was two years ago,” the 27-year-old Briton said. “And I feel more complete and more confident. I know exactly what to do in certain circumstances.”

“Of course, I was nervous before the race as you would expect, but I didn’t feel any extra nerves or any extra pressure. It just felt like another race, and I knew I had a chance to win, and I felt great about that.

“I’ve been saying it for a while, I feel like I’m ready to fight for the title. I feel like I’m ready to move on to my next step.”

The wait for a contract continues for ‘awesome’ Russell.

While Russell has never seemed to lack confidence, it’s understandable that he would feel the need to promote himself after what he went through in 2025.

Russell has performed at a very high level since joining Mercedes in 2022, outperforming Lewis Hamilton in two of their three seasons as teammates before the seven-time world champion left to join Ferrari.

This year, placed alongside Kimi Antonelli, the Italian teenager who quickly joined the team after being hailed as a generational talent, Russell finished ahead of his teammate in all 18 grands prix and edged the 19-year-old by 237 to 88 points.

These performances were not enough to establish Russell as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s first choice to lead the team into the new generation of rules for 2026, under which many expect the Silver Arrows to return to championship contention for the first time since they won the last of a run of eight consecutive constructors’ titles in 2021.

Instead, Wolff focused on trying to poach Verstappen from Red Bull, Russell said Sky Sports F1 In June, it was believed that his contract extension had been delayed due to Mercedes’ pursuit of the Dutchman.

Verstappen’s announcement in late July that he would stay with Red Bull until at least the end of the 2026 season seemed to guarantee that Russell would remain with Mercedes for at least another year, but more than two months later, an agreement has yet to be reached.

Wolf said Sky Sports F1 In Singapore, the deal is “very close” to being finalized, and anything other than Mercedes retaining its current lineup in 2026 would be a massive surprise.

However, it seemed fairly clear when Wolff was asked in his post-race press conference in Singapore whether he thought Russell had been the best driver on the grid this season.

The Austrian replied: “It was great this year. I didn’t see any mistakes. There were weekends when he said himself: ‘I could have done more, and the racing wasn’t so good.’

He continued: “But this happens with any driver. You can see when it all comes together, the car is in an ideal space, and the driver is on top of things, this becomes the prevailing formula, and this is what we saw here.”

“In terms of contracts, good things take time, they’re about the details, they’re not about the big issues.”

Is Russell the best among the rest?

While you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the Formula 1 paddock who would argue that anyone other than Verstappen is the best driver currently on the grid, it remains debatable whether the gap between him and Russell is large enough to warrant the potential anxiety caused by the situation.

Not only has Russell been undermined by his team’s clear prioritization of Verstappen, but it also remains to be seen how the Dutchman and his camp will fit into a Mercedes structure that differs from the Red Bull setups formed around him.

It is very difficult to compare the performance of drivers unless they are teammates, but Russell has enjoyed a similar level of dominance within his team this year as Verstappen.

The Dutchman dropped several hints during the season that he believed he was going to dominate the McLaren in which Piastri and Norris won 12 of the first 15 races of the year.

Russell’s repeated comments at the start of the season that McLaren had one of the most dominant cars in the history of the sport perhaps reflected frustration with his feeling that having a car like the MCL38 would bring him a first world championship.

Three-time W Series Champion Sky Sports F1 Critic Jamie Chadwick, who knew Russell well having arrived through the ranks of British motorsport at the same time, believed he had developed into a “complete driver”.

“I think now he can develop into this driver who can do it all,” Chadwick said on the latest episode of Sky Sports. F1 Gallery. “I think we’ve talked a lot about how Max is this kind of complete driver but I think George is coming to that.

“There is this category of race drivers who have the ability to qualify, race wheel to wheel, not crash, and perform under pressure, and there are very few of them at the moment, but I would put George up there 100 percent in that category.”

While it is clear that the closely matched Piastri and Norris both have talent, there were moments during their title fight that suggested neither of them came close to matching Verstappen.

Some might argue that Hamilton or his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc should be in the conversation, but at their current form, neither is close to the consistency that Russell has shown.

While there seems to be a good chance that Russell will get the chance in 2026 to prove he is a championship-caliber driver, only Mercedes pairing the Briton with Verstappen in 2027 will provide a definitive answer as to how good he is.

The Formula 1 title race now returns to North America, with the US Grand Prix at Austin taking place on October 17-19 live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports now – no contract, cancel anytime