Russell and Hamilton closely matched: 'Within a tenth of Lewis'

George Russell has impressed his team greatly in his debut season with Mercedes. Despite a difficult season, the Briton showed he could keep up with the experienced Lewis Hamilton.

Russell has beaten his 2022 teammate by a 35-point difference in the drivers' championship. The young Briton secured Mercedes' only victory this season in Brazil. According to Mercedes engineer James Vowles, Russell and Hamilton were extremely closely matched.

"I think on the whole it doesn’t really take us to tell you this but George did a very good job this year. He is against the best in the world and that’s your reference", Vowles says in the Mercedes debrief.

Russell was able to prove himself

Especially at the beginning of the season, Mercedes had a big gap towards the other top teams. While Hamilton was able to use his experience to help the team improve, Russell was mostly still getting used to his new work environment. "George in that period of time was just really focused on learning, embedding himself into the team and he scored a number of results really that benefited him as a result of that. Irrespective his qualifying pace I think is within a tenth of where Lewis ended up, his race pace was very, very strong throughout the year", says the Mercedes engineer.