George Russell is better than Lewis Hamilton 'in the way that Senna was better than Prost', according to F1 pundit

F1 pundit Peter Windsor feels that George Russell is better than Lewis Hamilton in the same way that Ayrton Senna was better than Alain Prost. Much has been made about Russell's ability to pull out a lap when needed in qualifying and this season that has been considered an advantage over his teammate.

After five races this season, Hamilton trails Russell 1-4 in qualifying and that is something that has stood out this season.

Comparing these two drivers to former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, Windsor said that there was no area where the Finnish driver was better than Lewis. In one of the latest editions of his live stream, Peter Windsor said:

“I don’t think he’s got any weakness compared with Bottas. Nothing against Valtteri but I don’t see one area where he was better than Lewis. I think George is better than Lewis a little bit in the way that Senna was better than Prost in qualifying sometimes. Just incredibly fine, not judgement, but just taking it a little bit further."

Explaining things further, Windsor revealed how George Russell would push the boundaries of the track a bit more on the single lap as compared to Lewis Hamilton. He said:

“If Lewis is leaving three centimetres, George will leave one-and-a-half on a qualifying lap – and sometimes it’ll result in an error as it did obviously in qualifying for the sprint race in Baku. I think it’s just that. I think that’s the way George has always driven. He’s absolutely no margin at all and sometimes it gets the better of him. "

Windsor added:

"And I think that’s where possibly you could argue he has [an edge] over Lewis, but you could say that’s the quality of Lewis that he doesn’t put himself in that position and he’s more on top of the car and very rarely does he make the sort of mistakes that George does when he’s right on the edge."

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Lewis Hamilton's mistakes are more standard

Talking about the approach of the two drivers, Peter Windsor said that since Lewis Hamilton was leaving arguably a bigger margin compared to George, his mistakes are somewhat more standard.

He said:

“The sort of mistakes Lewis makes are standard mistakes like getting the tyre warm up wrong or traffic, not pacing the traffic correctly, or maybe making a judgement call on setup and the tyre pressure doesn’t go the way they think it’s going to go – things like that. But then George makes the same mistakes like that."

The two Mercedes drivers have been very competitive this season and it will be interesting to see who takes the lead as the season progresses.