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George Russell parked his Mercedes car behind the P1 board in parc ferme, removed his steering wheel, and hoisted himself from his cockpit to stand before his cheering team.
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Russell had scored pole for Mercedes in Canada, his first in nearly two years. He had already planned how he was going to celebrate. Russell thrust his arms out to either side and flexed his hands outward to recreate his iconic ‘T pose’ from the 2023 F1 intro sequence, which has quickly become ingrained in the sport’s meme culture.
The T pose is back. pic.twitter.com/D9LrtSX27p
— George Russell (@GeorgeRussell63) June 8, 2024
“That took off a lot more than I expected, that pose and the funny memes that came around it,” Russell said with a laugh two weeks later in Barcelona. “I actually said before the session, ‘If I’m on pole, I’m gonna do that.’ I had a feeling it was coming.”
Russell’s pose delighted the internet. But the result was what mattered. After a slow start to the year suggested Mercedes hadn’t changed course after two rough seasons, Russell was finally in a position to feel pole was possible – and he actually made it happen.
Nor was the performance a one-off. Russell led the opening stages in Canada before finishing third and also led the two laps in Spain after a rocket start before ending up fourth behind teammate Lewis Hamilton at the flag. After Mercedes’s false breakthroughs in 2022 and 2023, this surge feels different as it closes on a return to the front. It’s there with McLaren and Ferrari in the hunt to catch Red Bull.
“It definitely feels like something has clicked,” Russell said.
The belief Mercedes has turned the corner
Russell got his long-awaited chance to race for Mercedes full-time in 2022 after three years at Williams. Given the team’s streak of eight constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021, fighting for poles and wins looked set to become his norm.
However, Russell’s arrival coincided with Mercedes’ performance downturn, as it lagged behind Red Bull and Ferrari under the new technical regulations. Suspected turnarounds, such as his maiden grand prix victory at Interlagos in 2022 or last year’s brief mid-season revivals, proved misleading. Even entering the third season under this ruleset, Mercedes looked far from the front.
But the picture has changed in recent races, fueled by Mercedes’ recent updates that appear to have resolved some of the W15’s greatest issues.
“We’ve maybe been too big and bold with our decisions over these last two years,” Russell explained. “We’ve almost just wound it in slightly with this last set of upgrades. On the simulator, it’s really performing well. I didn’t believe it at the start ahead of Montreal because the gains felt too big — and then in Montreal, we were flying.”
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According to its rivals, Mercedes was the quickest team in Canada, which left Russell feeling like he’d missed an opportunity to get his second win. He admitted to being “a bit hard” on himself over his mistakes in Canada, like the one that allowed Lando Norris to pass him or taking too long to overtake Oscar Piastri. Given Norris and Max Verstappen, the eventual winner, also struggled for mistake-free races, Russell couldn’t feel too bad about missing out on the win. “It’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.”
Following Canada up with another strong weekend in Spain, a very different kind of track, gave Mercedes further encouragement. Russell and Hamilton didn’t have the pace to challenge Verstappen or Norris ahead, but they were a clear step ahead of Ferrari. This uptick has whetted Russell’s appetite for the performance steps and opportunities that could follow in the coming races.
“That’s why we’re all sat here in anticipation of what these next couple of weeks are going to bring,” he said.
Handling social media negativity
As amusing as Russell may have found the memes surrounding his intro pose, he refers to social media as a “double-edged sword.” It’s not solely fun and banter. “There’s a lot of hate and negativity,” Russell said. “And it’s almost impossible to avoid.”
That hate emerged after Canada when Russell was subject to abuse online and wild allegations of favoritism towards him after he beat Hamilton to the podium. It ran so far that an anonymous email was sent to high-ranking F1 personnel and the media, in which allegations of sabotage on Hamilton’s car were made. Hamilton was quick to condemn the negativity shown toward Russell, while Mercedes has since referred the email to the police.
Russell deleted all social media from his phone a while ago, not because of any particular incident or spate of abuse but because he didn’t feel it added anything to his life. He still signs off the captions and photographs posted to his official accounts and re-downloaded Instagram to watch F1 videos from races, only to be shocked by the number of negative comments on every single post.
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“It doesn’t matter who it’s about, I’d say 50 percent of the time it’s negative,” Russell said. “I find that quite tough to comprehend.” He said platforms were going in “a very challenging direction” and “somebody really needs to take control of regulating it better,” mainly to protect younger generations. Until then, Russell continues to limit his usage of such apps.
Getting in a good headspace is something he has worked to prioritize more throughout his career. For the past four years, Russell has worked with a psychologist to help him deal with the mental demands of being an F1 driver. “I find it really beneficial,” Russell said of having space to “just let my feelings out” and discuss race scenarios where having strategies in place can help.
“This sport swings so quickly,” he said. “One minute you’re a hero, the next you’re zero, and it can swing as quickly as from FP3 to qualifying or from race to race. I’ve been in a position where I’ve been on a roll for a couple of races, and then suddenly, the next race, I’m off the pace. And it’s like, ’S—, how am I dealing with this?’ What’s going on? And most of the time, it’s up in your head.”
Russell feels stronger about handling setbacks, particularly from a race like Canada. “I feel like I’m able to bounce back very quickly from a tough weekend or even a tough session,” he said, putting it in part down to his growing experience.
“You learn as you get older what you need as an individual,” Russell said. “It doesn’t work for everyone; Lewis and I are two very different characters as well, and we do things differently. You’ve just got to find what works for you.”
Stepping up to lead Mercedes
Russell relishes racing alongside Hamilton at Mercedes. In their final season as teammates, he is 8-2 up in qualifying and 6-3 up in races – the kind of record few have got close to enjoying over the seven-time world champion. “I know that if this was a different era, I’d probably have eight poles to my name this season and a number of wins,” Russell said.
It’s an encouraging sign that Russell is ready to lead Mercedes upon Hamilton’s move to Ferrari next year. But Russell claims not to have felt any difference in the dynamic in the build-up to the change, with all the signs pointing to Mercedes’ 17-year-old protege, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, becoming his teammate.
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“There’s often a lot of noise externally, but from within, my job when I put my helmet on and walk into the garage, I try to drive as fast as possible,” Russell said. “That’s always been the case. It doesn’t matter if I’ve got a seven-time world champion alongside me or if I’ve got a young rookie next to me or nobody next to me. It’s how you deal with that external noise.”
Russell’s confidence in Mercedes’s leadership to build upon the recent turnaround is evident. He described team principal Toto Wolff and technical director James Allison as a “killer pairing.” Allison returned to the F1 frontline last year as part of a reshuffle of the technical department at Brackley in response to its on-track struggles.
“With James at the helm, steering the direction to allow the hundreds of people in the design office and aero department, and manufacturing, to do what they do best, it feels like something is clicking,” Russell said. “It’s taken time, but between James and Toto, I really believe in it.”
It fuels hope for the chance to fight for the wins and championships Russell long dreamed of achieving in Mercedes colors. But right now, he’s willing to take more risks — like in Canada, where he admits to “pushing way beyond my limits as I felt this was one shot at victory.”
“If I was in a championship fight against Max, I’d probably have said P2 is the result today, and I accept that, and I need to dial down the risk-reward of how hard I’m driving,” Russell explained. “Whereas at the moment, in the race, that dial is turned up all the way because I want to get a victory to my name. That’s the mentality I’m in at the moment.”
Ambitious? Yes, but not exactly comfortable or, as Russell conceded, enjoyable. “I’d rather be more consistent like I was in 2022, but six years in, I don’t take the satisfaction from consistently finishing just in the top five,” he said. “In 2022, I finished in the top five more than any single driver on the grid, but I’d prefer finishing P6 every race and having two victories rather than finishing P5, P4, P3 every race and not get the race victory.
“I hope that mentality can change next year if we have a car that can fight for the championship.”
Top photo: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)