George Russell: Has the Mercedes driver become F1’s next best driver after Max Verstappen amid a superb 2025 campaign? | F1 News

“I feel ready to fight for a championship.”

This is what George Russell spontaneously told the media after taking a surprise victory for Mercedes at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend.

At the start of the weekend, the focus had been on whether Max Verstappen had put himself back into a 2025 title race led by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

But as he seems to do every time Mercedes gives him a car capable of challenging his rivals, Russell crashed the party to complete two laps enough for pole position at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, before calmly controlling the race to claim the fifth Grand Prix victory of his career.

The victory had added meaning for Russell, as it came at the scene of one of the worst moments of his F1 career, a crash in the closing stages of the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix while running third and attempting to chase down Norris and then-Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz.

Having achieved what he clearly sees as a form of redemption, Russell took the opportunity to reaffirm what he sees as his position in the sport.

“I am a very different driver today than I was a few years ago,” said the 27-year-old Briton. “And I feel more complete, more confident. I know exactly what I should do in given circumstances.

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

“I’ve been saying it for a while: I feel ready to fight for a championship. I feel ready to take the next step.”

Contract wait continues for ‘tremendous’ Russell

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

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

This year, alongside Kimi Antonelli, the Italian teenager who was quickly integrated into the team after being touted as a generational talent, Russell finished ahead of his teammate in all 18 Grands Prix and outscored the 19-year-old by 237 to 88 points.

Those performances were not enough to make Russell Mercedes chief Toto Wolff’s first choice to lead the team into the new generation of 2026 rules, under which many expect the Silver Arrows to return to the championship for the first time since winning the last of a streak of eight successive constructors’ titles in 2021.

Wolff instead focused on trying to poach Verstappen from Red Bull, with Russell saying Sky Sports F1 in June he believed an extension to his contract was being delayed by Mercedes’ pursuit of the Dutchman.

Verstappen announced in late July that he would stay at Red Bull at least until the end of the 2026 season, which seemed to guarantee that Russell would stay at Mercedes for at least one more year, but more than two months later a deal has yet to be reached.

Wolff said Sky Sports F1 in Singapore, that a deal is “very close” to being finalized, and that anything other than Mercedes maintaining its current lineup in 2026 would be a huge surprise.

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

The Austrian replied: “He was great this year. I didn’t see any mistakes. There were weekends where he himself said: ‘I could have done more, and it wasn’t a good race.’

“But it happens with any driver. You can see when it merges, the car being in a perfect space and the driver being on top of the situation, it becomes a dominant formula, and that’s what we saw here.”

“When it comes to contracts, good things take time, it’s about details and not big topics.”

Is Russell the best of the rest?

While it’s hard to find anyone in the F1 paddock who would say that anyone other than Verstappen is currently the best driver on the grid, it remains up for debate whether the gap between him and Russell is large enough to justify the potential discomfort caused by the situation.

Not only has Russell been undermined by his team’s apparent priority over Verstappen, but it also remains to be seen how the Dutchman and his camp would fit into a structure at Mercedes that differs from a Red Bull setup that has been shaped around him.

It’s very difficult to compare drivers’ performances unless they are teammates, but Russell has enjoyed a similar level of dominance within his own team this year to Verstappen.

The Dutchman suggested several times during the season that he thought he would have dominated the McLaren in which Piastri and Norris won 12 of this year’s first 15 grands prix.

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

Three-time W Series champion and Sky Sports F1 Expert Jamie Chadwick, who knows Russell well having risen through the ranks of British motorsport around the same time, believes he has become a “complete driver”.

“I think now he’s capable of becoming that driver who can do everything,” Chadwick said in the latest episode of Sky Sports. The F1 show. “I think we talk a lot about Max being that kind of complete driver, but I think George is stepping into that lane.

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

While it’s clear that the closely matched Piastri and Norris are both talented, there have been moments during their title battle to suggest that neither is close to a match for Verstappen.

Some might argue that either Hamilton or his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc should be part of the conversation, but given their current form, neither comes close to the consistency demonstrated by Russell.

Although there appears to be a good chance that Russell will have the opportunity in 2026 to prove that he is a championship-caliber driver, only Mercedes pairing the Briton with Verstappen in 2027 would provide a definitive answer to how good he is.

The F1 title race now returns to North America, with the United States Grand Prix in Austin first from October 17-19 live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime